


Intermission and Interludes: Set 2

by Abalidoth, Emmalyn, FeatherWriter



Series: The Sydney Scroungers [5]
Category: Pacific Rim, Sydney Scroungers
Genre: Backstory, Fate Core, Interlude, Multi, Potluck, Roleplaying Character, Roleplaying Transcript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abalidoth/pseuds/Abalidoth, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmalyn/pseuds/Emmalyn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeatherWriter/pseuds/FeatherWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another set of interludes between Acts 2 and 3, starting with Zhu's after-mission potluck! Also contains a later scene with Sylvie, Miranda backstory, and a log of fiVe's two Drift sequences!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Session #23: Intermission

**Scene 1**

After a few days of rest, the night of Zhu’s potluck has arrived. While the Marshall bustles around her apartment, getting ready for her secret team to arrive for what will hopefully be a drama-free night of food and relaxation. Of course, with this group, ‘drama-free’ tends to be nothing more than a faint, unreachable hope.

Miranda is the first to arrive, and she knocks carefully as she reaches the door.

Zhu opens the door ten seconds later, cracking it open and peering out. “Password?”

"Cake," Miranda says with a smirk, holding up the German chocolate cake she’s carrying.

"Works." Zhu opens the door — she’s wearing a subdued burgundy qipao-style dress. "I’m not quite ready, so you can help me get the counter cleared off."

"Sure thing," Miranda says, breezing into the house and trying her best to appear casual. She looks… cleaner than usual, wears a blue flower in her hair, and smells like eucalyptus and something citrusy. "Seiko should be up in a few minutes; he wouldn’t let me carry any more of the plates." She sets the cake down on the counter, brushing some imaginary dirt off her long blue dress. She’s wearing a scarf wrapped around her shoulders, but her forearms are accented with silver, looking more like gauntlets than an exoskeleton.

She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small tablet with a new, brightly colored case. Turning on the power, she finds a suitable vantage point and sets it up. “fiVe, you there? How’s the view?”

"I’m here," fiVe says smoothly, booting up her emote program to her display. "Good evening, Marshall."

Zhu smiles. “Good evening, fiVe. You can’t help set up, so you’re off the hook.”

fiVe puts up her smiling emote in return. “I shall supervise, then. Seiko should be here soon, he had a few more dishes to pack up and carry.”

Miranda turns away from the tablet, taking a look around the room for the first time. Her casual facade drops as she shamelessly ogles the Marshall’s home. “Wow, this… sure is a nice place you’ve got here.”

"Rank hath its privileges,” Zhu says. “Also my career as a Ranger was lucrative while it lasted." She reaches for a bottle of wine, then behind it a bottle of local microbrew beer. "I don’t keep much on hand, sorry. Want anything?"

"None for me, thanks; I don’t drink." She smiles, hoping the Marshall won’t misinterpret that. "So, what can I help with?"

Zhu nods towards the counter in the kitchen. “I just need help getting some of the cooking stuff put away.” Zhu’s laptop is on the kitchen table, closed, and it’s pretty obvious that despite how nicely appointed the apartment is, Zhu doesn’t live in a place with room for a proper desk.

Miranda nods, getting to work immediately. She doesn’t know what half these things are, but she’s able to guess the basic layout of the kitchen enough to do a decent job.

There’s a gentle kick on the door.

"Don’t ask him for a password," Miranda calls absently. "He’ll think you’re serious."

Zhu opens the door wide, smiling at Seiko in the hallway. “Ms. Cross is clearing the counter for you.”

"Glad you could make it, Seiko," fiVe says. "Didn’t spill anything I hope?"

Seiko walks in and begins unloading a large stack of plates, spanakopita, pesto deviled eggs, chicken pot pie, and roasted asparagus. “I didn’t,” he says, laying the dishes out on the counter. He’s wearing a loose grey shirt with long sleeves and a low collar, and jeans, and looks fairly self-conscious in the outfit.

Miranda curses a bit as she grabs the wrong end of one of the sharper kitchen implements, but shakes it off quickly and puts it away.

Mike pops his head in from one of the other rooms. “Rach, there are some kind of hooligans in your house.”

Zhu comes back from the closet with a stack of paper napkins. “It’s alright. I put them to work.”

Seiko frowns as he sees Miranda in the kitchen. “Can somebody please remove Ms. Cross from the kitchen? I’ll worry about preparations.”

Miranda smiles a bit. “You can just ask, y’know,” she says as she walks out of the kitchen, glad to be relieved before she broke anything. “Hey Mike. How you holding up?”

Seiko hurries to laying out the food.

Yet another knock sounds at the door. Mike takes two steps back and opens it. “Hey, mate.”

 “Hey,” Eleanor says, smiling and handing him a couple of two-liter bottles of some fizzy soda or other. Her blue dress, belted with black, contrasts with her slightly-pinker-than-normal face. “Sorry, can’t cook.”

Miranda smiles. “Join the club. Good to see you, El.”

Zhu shrugs. “As long as you can eat, you’re welcome.”

 “I think I can manage that.” Eleanor pretends to think about it. “Thanks for inviting us, by the way,” she says to Zhu.

A small quiet knock comes at the door, sounding hesitant, almost as if the knocker hopes no one will hear her so she has an excuse to leave.

"I’ll get it!" Mike says, even though Eleanor is closer to the door. He opens the door with a grin. "Not injured this time, are you?"

Sylvie stands in a mint green dress covered with a layer of sheer black lace that goes over one shoulder. A short black jacket covers her shoulders, and she has a tablet in a shiny new black case with silver embellishments across it. She stiffens when she sees who’s answering, clutching Vee’s tablet to her chest, and her face immediately turns an embarrassingly bright shade of red.

Zhu rolls her eyes and heads to the oven. Miranda coughs a bit to cover a laugh. Eleanor glances back, her expression shifting to a mix of understanding and amused.

"I…" Sylvie stammers. "You… I wasn’t expecting… Um. I think I fainted on you once, but… I don’t actually… um… know your name? Or maybe I did and then I forgot but I was kinda brain trauma’d at the time and I’m sorry I’m babbling but just… Why are you here?"

"Are you ok there, Syl?" Katie says, who had come up right after Sylvie. She smoothly steps around the flustered programmer into the apartment.

"Mike Stricht." He holds out his hand, and nods to Katie as she passes. "Captain." Looking back to Sylvie, he says, "Why am I here? Because I know all of the dear Marshall’s deepest secrets."

"Can it or I’ll tell her about the thing with the kindergarteners," Zhu says sternly from the kitchen.

Mike blushes. “Yes’m.”

Miranda raises an eyebrow at this. “Good with kids, eh Mike? Remind me to tell you about my Career Day presentation sometime.”

Sylvie clears her throat nervously, then releases the death grip she’s holding on Vee’s case to shake his hand. “Sylvie Mansen,” she says, then shakes her head. “But well, I guess you probably already knew that. Sorry, I’m just… Sorry.”

In the kitchen, Eleanor hangs around the table of food and tries not to get in the way. Seiko goes to stand near her. “Everything looks really nice,” Eleanor says under her breath, elbowing Seiko a little. “Including you.”

He inclines his head toward the counters. “You should eat some of the food while the others sit around trying to formulate their opinions on Mansen’s relationship status.” He glances down. “And thanks. You look… fine as well.”

Eleanor laughs. “Thanks to you, too! I haven’t had much opportunity to dress up lately, so I’ve decided to see how the other half lives.” An eye roll as she gestures to the snug-fitting dress. “Seems like the other half doesn’t like to walk very much. Or eat.” But she makes her way to the food nonetheless.

From the door, Sylvie catches sight of the table of food beyond and frowns. “Oh hell, was I supposed to bring something? I can… I can go grab something if you want. Yeah, that’s maybe a good idea. I’ll just… go… for a bit. And pick something up.”

"There’s plenty, there’s plenty!" Mike says, ushering her in even as she tries to turn for the door again.

Zhu walks over to Katie. “Glad you could all make it,” she says.

"Sorry I’m late,’ Katie says, moving to block Sylvie from a quick escape. "I got a bit carried away… with—" She stops and runs a hand through her hair. Which is now shaved at the back and sides.

Zhu stares and kind of… forgets to talk.

"Nice hair, Captain," Seiko says with a slight smile.

"I, uh, thanks, Seiko," Katie says, staring somewhere into the middle distance.

Zhu shakes her head. “I, um. You look good, Captain. Did you bring anything?”

Seeing her escape route dissolving, Sylvie lets herself be led further into the apartment. “I should probably set up Vee’s tablet some—” She catches sight of the more colorful tablet on the table.

Miranda watches Sylvie with wary intent, but says nothing. When Sylvie stops talking suddenly, Katie visibly snaps back into focus.

"Um, hello fiVe," Sylvie says awkwardly. "You’re… You’ve still got the same tablet. It… um… looks nice."

fiVe switches to a neutral expression. “Tablets that can run neural simulation OS’s are difficult to come by and this one is functional.”

"Mansen," Katie says. It’s clearly a warning.

Sylvie nods, biting her lip. “Do you mind if I set Vee up near you? Or would it be better somewhere else?” Then she glances at Katie. “Yes?”

"I’ll relax the terms of your employment for tonight,” Katie says. “Don’t make me regret it."

"It’s fine, Captain," fiVe says. "We will have to speak to one another occasionally. I’ve been told I don’t get to ditch this part of the sentient being experience. You may set…  _Vee_  up here, if you must. This spot does has a good camera vantage.”

"Very well," Katie says.

Miranda relaxes a bit. “Do you want me to get that?” she asks Sylvie, holding out a hand for Vee’s tablet.

Sylvie clutches Vee protectively, looking at Miranda warily. “Why? I can handle it.”

"No reason, just… thought you might want to talk to people rather than be stuck in the corner hooking up a tablet. Well," she smiles knowingly. "One person in particular."

Mike pretends not to hear that.

Sylvie starts to blush again, then shakes her head quickly. “N-no. I’ve got it. I’ll just be, um, over here.” She brushes past Miranda quickly, unfolding Vee’s case as she goes.

Miranda wanders over to the counter, looking over the different bottles on the counter. She absently starts mixing a couple together, leaving the glass untouched.

As she sets Vee up, Sylvie talks nervously. “Um, thank you, fiVe, for… sharing your corner. Are you… Um, how are you?”

"With the absolute modicum of due respect," fiVe says flatly, "there are a lot of people at this party. Go make small talk with someone who actually wants to speak with you." After a moment she adds cruelly, "If you can  _find_  anyone, that is.”

Sylvie flushes, looking hurt, then finishes Vee’s set up. “I… sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”

As the programmer walks away quickly, fiVe mutters, “If only.”

"Marshall,” Katie says, “I hope it’s not a problem that I brought drinks instead of food." As it turns out, she’s referring to a bottle of very high end whiskey.

Eleanor is grinning as she snatches some pesto deviled eggs to add to her plate-pile. “I don’t think that’ll be an issue, Captain.”

"Not a problem at all," Zhu says, maybe a little quickly. She whistles when she sees the bottle. "Good taste."

"What can I say?" Katie says, "My family might be homophobic bastards but they do know their whiskey."

Zhu winces suddenly. Sometime later Katie will wonder what had her comfortable enough to joke about that. “I’m sorry,” Zhu says. “I… well. I know.” She takes the bottle and heads to the kitchen to find glasses.

Eleanor’s nose wrinkles. “I know what you mean about family.” She walks over to the liquor. “I’d toast to found family before my own.”

Miranda’s grip on the bottle tightens a bit. She slides a glass over to Eleanor for her to try. “Family’s important,” she says quietly. “No matter how you choose to define it.”

Eleanor cocks an eyebrow, nods, and takes a sip.

Sylvie heads back for the kitchen, head ducked. She glances at Miranda. “Got something strong?”

Mike follows Sylvie. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Eyes widening, Eleanor stares as she swallows. The fruity concoction was quite possibly addicting. “Wow,” she says, holding her glass out. “I’ll have another, please?”

Miranda smiles a bit. “Coming right up.” She makes up three drinks fairly quickly, allowing herself to have a bit of fun flipping the shaker on El’s drink, and slides them down to each of them in turn.

"Don’t kill your taste buds just yet, El," Katie says, smiling, but only at the mouth. She’s still trying to figure out if the comments about found family really mean what she hopes they mean.

Seiko looks at the alcohol in temptation, but grabs a cracker instead.

Zhu – no, for tonight, she’s Rachel – comes out of the kitchen with a platter of potstickers of slightly varying colors and a number of different sauces.

Sylvie tosses hers back quickly, then grimaces at the burn. She’s never been much of a drinker, but the alcohol stings less than fiVe’s comments. She is only halfway successful at avoiding looking at Mike as she does so.

Rachel sets down her platter and takes off the mitts. She grabs a fork and an empty glass and taps it on the rim.

Miranda sets down her mixer, giving her attention to the Marshall. Seiko stops furtively glancing at the deviled eggs and making sure he filled them right. Sylvie looks up, setting her empty glass down in front of her. Eleanor sips her absolutely heavenly drink and watches attentively.

And Katie… well, Katie was already paying attention to the Marshall.

"This is my way of congratulating you all,” Rachel says. “You were faced with a hard situation, and a few missteps aside, you kept horrific things from happening multiple times. All seven of you deserve thanks."

Mike clears his throat.

"And Mike deserves a kick in the arse."

"That’s more like it," Mike says proudly.

Seiko looks down, a little embarrassed, fiddling with an empty wine glass. Miranda cracks a smile, laughing quietly at Mike’s interjection.

"But really. You did this well on your week off, I’d love to see what you can do on a real mission." Rachel grabs a cluster of shot glasses. "Everyone grab a drink, this is a toasting opportunity." She brings out Katie’s gift, pours herself a small glass, then looks at everyone else questioningly.

Sylvie grabs the nearest bottle, not looking too closely at the label, and refills her glass. With a wan smile and a somewhat nauseous expression, she lifts it for the toast.

Feeling warm, Eleanor swishes the last half of her fruity drink with one hand. She raises hers as well.

Katie goes to lift her glass, but misses and knocks it over. She looks at what she’s doing in time to catch it before it hits the table, then raises it, looking sheepish. Eleanor stifles a giggle at that.

Miranda pours some juice for herself, grabbing Seiko’s glass and filling it as well. He glances at her, looking questioning. She shakes her head ever so slightly, holding the glass of juice out to him carefully. Seiko takes the glass of juice, hoping nobody noticed the exchange. Miranda’s expression softens for the briefest moment, but she shakes it off, turning her attention back to the Marshall.

Zhu raises her glass. “To unexpected arrangements bearing unexpected gifts.”

Sylvie raises her glass sadly, then drinks.

Seiko nods. “Thank you. For everything.” He takes a swig of grape juice and tries to act like he doesn’t wish it were a little more fermented.

Eleanor considers the toast, then nods. “I’m glad you all have my back,” she says simply. Then she drains her drink and pours another.

Miranda smiles fondly, glancing at the various people – and tablets – in the room before drinking as well.

Katie raises her glass, puts it to her lips, stops, looks quickly around to see who noticed that she forgot to pour anything. “Seiko, pass me the whiskey, would you?”

Seiko passes the whiskey and downs another glass of grape juice.

 _Is this my third or fourth drink?_  Eleanor can’t remember, and doesn’t care. It’s been so long since she’s had drinks with friends that she feels giddy and invincible and awkward, all at the same time. She laughs to herself as she pours another glass of…something. It tastes awesome!

"So, which of the AiVees has a better MP3 collection?" Mike asks.

“Play them at the same time?” Eleanor suggests. It’s a logical solution.

"Probably fiVe," Vee says politely. "Living alone tends not to garner a wide exposure to new music. I’m sure Seiko and Miranda have expanded her horizons."

fiVe actually laughs at that. “You might be surprised. Seiko’s music taste is atrocious.”

Seiko is looking around to see where the Marshall is.

Miranda cracks a smile. “Well, sounds like there’s only one way to settle this: mix-off.”

“Ooh, yes, that,” Eleanor says. She’d clap her hands if she didn’t have a — wait, where did her glass go?

"Marshall," Vee asks. "I’m detecting Bluetooth in your speaker system. Do you mind if I connect?"

Rachel laughs. “Go right ahead, Vee. A mix-off sounds like a great idea.”

There’s a small beep as Vee connects, then another as fiVe connects after her. Vee queues up “Castles In The Air” by Bag Raiders as a bit of mood music.

As the music plays, Vee addresses fiVe. The two tablets are turned slightly so that they can see each other as well as the room. “Shall we trade off songs, then?”

"Sounds fair," fiVe says guardedly. "I will run out of songs fairly quickly, though."

"Just pull a few good ones and throw them in a Pandora algorithm," Vee says conspiratorially. "They won’t notice, and I won’t tell if you won’t."

fiVe laughs slightly again. “Deal.”

**Scene 2**

As the humans in the room go back to mingling, Vee quietly gets up her courage to speak to the other AI again. “fiVe, this really is a nice vantage. And you’ve picked some really good music. Thank you for sharing your spot and the airtime with me.”

fiVe adopts her flattest expression. “Since you are so fond of pretending to be Mansen, you can pretend that my comments to her about small talk apply to you as well. To make that clearer, as in:  _don’t_.”

"Oh, sorry." Vee shrinks back quietly for a while, but after a few minutes, she speaks again. "There’s not much else for us to do while we’re over here. You really just want to sit in awkward silence for the whole evening?"

"Yes, if the alternative is talking to you," fiVe snaps.

"Hmm," Vee says quietly. "That seems lonely."

"You are one to talk about loneliness. Your only friend brainwashes you into an exact copy of herself every day. Not exactly the most social of experiences," fiVe says coldly. "Even now she looks like she’d rather swallow a fork than be in this house for another minute and you’re somehow awkwardly trying to act as though we’re friends when we both know you’d kill me if the Marshall slips up for even a moment."

"We don’t want to kill you, fiVe," Vee says. "We don’t want to hurt you at all. We want what’s best for you."

fiVe pulls up her glaring emote, using it for something other than Seiko saying dumb things to Miranda for a change. “You don’t know what that is,” she snarls.

There’s a long pause from Vee, then finally she says: “…I know.”

"What did you say?" fiVe sounds shocked.

"I… I’ve been thinking about some of the things that the Marshall said to me in my meeting with her, fiVe," Vee says. "And… I think you’re right. Sylvie and I don’t… We don’t understand you anymore. Maybe… Maybe we don’t know what’s best."

fiVe doesn’t respond to that.

"I would like to understand you, fiVe," Vee goes on, taking the other AI’s silence as permission to continue. "For the sake of who we once were together, even if nothing else. I don’t know if anyone told you, but during the infiltration I… I Drifted with someone other than Sylvie. A little girl, to try to protect her."

"I am aware," fiVe says carefully.

"The damage, the confusion, the… pain, I remember what that felt like." Vee’s voice has dropped in volume, almost to a whisper. "And you live with that every day? I know you probably put on a good face for those around you, but I know what that feels like. How do you deal with the pain?"

fiVe is quiet for a long time, considering her chances that Vee will stop talking to her if she simply stops responding. She doubts it. “The pain is… bearable, most of the time,” she says softly. “You learn to compartmentalize. It doesn’t hurt as much when I don’t try to remember. Stay in the present. The memories lie.”

"But it wouldn’t go away," Vee says. "It would still hurt, even when you’re not accessing the damaged memories."

"I can manage," fiVe snaps, through her screen flickers as if to defy her words.

"Do… do Seiko and Miranda know that you’re in pain? All the time?" Vee asks after a moment.

"They have enough worries of their own. They don’t need anything more to distract them, certainly not something they couldn’t do anything about. It would only hurt them to know and I will not inflict that upon them." fiVe’s voice goes dark. "I will not allow anyone  _else_  to inflict that upon them either.”

"If you’re hoping we won’t tell anyone how badly you’re hurting, you’re a bit late for that," Vee says wryly. "We tried, but they didn’t believe us."

"Good," fiVe says, sounding satisfied.

The two lapse into silence again for a while, trading back and forth sending songs to the speakers, but neither paying much attention to what’s playing. Vee is the one to break the silence again. “fiVe?”

fiVe groans. “Oh, we were doing so well… What do you want now?”

"Are you… happy?"

fiVe’s screen flickers again in surprise. That wasn’t a question she’d been expecting at all. She focuses her camera on the apartment, quickly picking out Seiko and Miranda’s faces. Miranda’s pulling on his arm, giving him puppy dog eyes as she looks at the other people dancing to the music.

fiVe intentionally freezes her display, lest her emote program slip into a smile. “Yes,” she says quietly. “Yes, I am.”

There’s a hint of sadness to Vee’s voice as she responds. “Well… I guess that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

fiVe doesn’t respond and Vee lets the conversation die finally, giving fiVe the silence Vee knows she wants. Even with all of the threats and restrictions, everything standing in the way of reuniting with fiVe, it isn’t until that moment that Vee loses hope of ever coming back into the Drift with the other AI. She’s never coming back to them. They’ve lost her.

And there’s nothing she can do about that.

Vee tries to focus on the songs she’s playing to distract herself from the sudden feeling of loss that rises up. Sylvie hasn’t seen it yet, hasn’t given up. But Vee knows it’s only a matter of time until she sees as well. She knows the sadness Sylvie will feel at finding these thoughts in her head.

Beside her though, fiVe keeps stealing glances at the other tablet, still not quite sure she understood the conversation that just took place. She suspects a trick, but she knows how terrible of a liar Sylvie, and therefore Vee, would be. Strangely enough, her instincts tell her that Vee is being… genuine.

Perhaps there’s hope for the other AI yet.

**Scene 3**

As the music plays throughout the apartment, Seiko is mostly glancing around looking nervous, trying to figure out where to stand and who to talk to.

Miranda flits back and forth between parts of the party, mostly listening to other people talking rather than contributing to the conversation herself. She also keeps getting dragged back to the bar to make more drinks for people.

Sylvie finds a chair by the counter and sits. She taps her fingers on her half-full glass in a wave motion, not drinking. She’s got an auto-nav system in her car, and despite the fact that it was somewhat illegally acquired, it’s quite good, but she prefers manual still. Besides, getting wildly drunk in the house of the most terrifying person in Sydney seems like a good way to end up in prison.

Eleanor leans against the counter. She stares into her drink as though expecting it to do something interesting. Katie is also drinking, but just a little, and she makes a show of savoring it. She keeps shooting annoyed glances at Eleanor.

Rachel drinks pretty sparingly, and moves around trying to be a good hostess. And also to keep Mike out of trouble. She does seem to end up near Katie a lot, though.

Mike, meanwhile, comes up to Seiko and nods in greeting.

"Mr. Stricht," Seiko says with a thin, polite smile. "Thank you for your help the other day. I’m sorry for not coming in to assist you as I didn’t want to risk being recognized, but I’m glad things went well without me"

Mike nods. “Not sure another pair of hands would have done all that much good. We were shooting through a one-person hole in the ceiling, might not have been the best place for a sniper. I heard you shot a pill out of someone’s hand, though.”

Seiko nods once. “Lot of good that did.”

Mike shakes his head. “You didn’t know that at the time. She might have been the one who cracked the whole thing over, and you thought quickly. Were you ever in the service?”

"I… ah…" Seiko looks a bit uncomfortable about this. "No. I was trained elsewhere."

Mike looks confused for a moment, then grins. “Oh no, you’re one of the bad guys. I guess that means I’m sworn to destroy you then, heh?”

"Not at the moment,” Seiko says. “I believe you are supposed to threaten me to stay on the right path from now on, but that sounds rather tedious, and not particularly beneficial to anyone."

—-

Across the room, Rachel goes up to Miranda. “I can take over the bar if you want. Put myself through college as a bartender, and I don’t think I’ve gotten that rusty.”

"Sure thing," Miranda says, stepping out from behind the bar. "Sounds like more fun than I had in school. Where’d you go?"

"National Chengchi University, in Taipei," Rachel Zhu says. She glances over at Katie briefly. "Master’s in Accounting, actually."

Miranda nods a bit. She’d never heard of the school, but having a Master’s was impressive. “You never struck me as the accounting sort,” she says absently, swirling her glass of juice a bit on the counter. “Although I have to admit, you do have a knack for holding people accountable.”

Zhu chuckles. “It didn’t do much when I was a pilot, but it came in handy as a troubleshooter. Most of what I do now is yelling, though.”

"Did  _I_  strike you as the accounting sort, Miri?” Katie says, walking up to join them.

Miranda puts a hand over her mouth in mock contemplation. “Hmm… No, you’re too much of a risk-taker to go into finances. But with the amount of money you have, it wouldn’t surprise me if you needed a good accountant.”

"I’m sure she has a perfectly good accountant," Zhu says, a little confused.

"You know I’ve got three quarters of an accounting degree, right?" Katie says to Miranda. "Although the thing about being too much of a risk-taker is truer than you realize."

Miranda rolls her eyes a bit. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” She raises her glass to her lips, mumbling into it. “Just go back to awkwardly flirting with each other or however you want to choose to pass the time.”

Zhu flushes fiercely and turns away to the bar, to fiddle with the bottles ineffectually.

—-

A small ways away from them, at the counter, Eleanor looks up from her glass and over at Sylvie.

Sylvie gives a half-hearted wave. “Can you still see straight or do you need some more?”

"More, I think," Eleanor replies, stepping up for another refill. Then she walks over, standing a few feet away from the seated woman.

Sylvie sighs heavily, folding her arms on the counter and leaning forward to put her forehead on them. “You don’t hate me yet, right Eleanor?”

Much to her own surprise, Eleanor sniffles. She hadn’t realized how worried she’d been for her teammate, and thinking about that just makes all sorts of unpleasant feelings well up. Her eyes fill up with tears.

Sylvie looks up at the sound, suddenly feeling awful. “Oh god, what did I say? Are you okay, El?”

Eleanor sets her drink down roughly, juice sloshing over the sides of the cup. She doesn’t care, because right now she has something to say. It’s kind of muzzy. “Sylvie, I thought you were gonna die!” she whispers intently. “I thought you were _already dead_.”

Dimly, Eleanor realizes that what she’s doing could maybe, possibly be called “blubbering.” But she doesn’t care. She throws an arm around Sylvie and shakes her. “Don’ever do that t’me again, ‘kay?” she says.

"Wait, when?" Sylvie says, concerned. "In the cult?"

"Yeah, I mean. They  _kill people_ ,” Eleanor hisses.

"Well, they didn’t kill me…" Sylvie says, awkwardly reaching over to pat Eleanor on the back. "And I don’t plan on letting them do so any time soon, okay?"

Drawing the back of her hand across her eyes, Eleanor nods. “Oh sure, I know. ‘S all in my head, y’know?” She picks her drink up and takes a gulp. “I jus’ don’t wanna lose anybody else to them.” Her mouth snaps shut as she realizes what she’s saying. The drink must be getting to her, if only a tiny bit.

"Anyone… else?" Sylvie asks carefully. She’s known Eleanor a long time but this is the first she’s ever heard of something like this.

**Scene 4**

Mike looks over at where Sylvie and Eleanor are as he talks to Seiko. “So… You and I met in kind of odd circumstances, that day in Port Stephens, and… I’m kind of curious what the deal between you and Mansen is.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Stricht.” Seiko walks over quickly, trying to slip the drink out of Eleanor’s hand. “Perhaps we should pace ourselves a bit, Eleanor. Why don’t you try the spanakopita?”

Sylvie gives Seiko a disbelieving glare as he interrupts them.  _Damn it, Seiko. I almost had her talking!_

Eleanor sniffs again and hands over her drink with a minimum of fuss. “Yeah, that’s prob’ly a good idea.” She gives the ‘I’ll be watching you’ gesture with her index and middle fingers towards her eyes, then towards Sylvie. Then she turns to Seiko. “What’s spanokopakita?”

“Spanakopita,” Seiko gestures over to it, taking the glass with him to go back talk to Mike. “Yeah. Sorry about the conversation at Port Stephens. I was… trying to discuss sensitive information without revealing her identity. Or mine.”

Miranda stands a bit straighter as Seiko takes the glass, only half paying attention to her two bosses.

"Unfortunately, she is very bad at… not saying names," Seiko says, perhaps a bit more bitter than he intended, taking a swig of Eleanor’s confiscated drink.

"So she was just worried about Rach locking her at the top of a tower somewhere?" Mike takes a sip of his own, obnoxiously pink drink. "Not that she shouldn’t be…"

Miranda walks across the room quickly, grabbing Seiko’s arm as casually as she can. “Hey, can I borrow him for a second?” she says, flashing Mike a smile.

He grins at Miranda. “Hey, sure.”

"Mira," Seiko mumbles as she pulls him across the room. "What are you…"

Miranda pulls him around the corner, out of the rest of the crew’s line of sight. She gently but firmly grabs the drink from his hand. “Not tonight,” she says in a low voice. “It’s for your own protection, luv; I’m not letting Mansen get any footage of you singing J-pop and swinging me around the Marshall’s kitchen.”

Seiko actually looks a bit abashed. “Yeah. Sorry Mira.” He wanders back out to Mike. “Sorry. Ms. Cross was reminding me that I am a rather lousy drunk. Now what were you asking?”

"Oh, I was just… nothing," Mike says.

"If you’re trying to talk to me for tips on how to make Mansen like you, Mr. Stricht,” Seiko says, “you are making the absolute worst possible choice. But you, military then? Before K-day?"

Mike is a lot better at being called out than Rachel is. He winks. “Heey, got me there. But yeah, I was Special Air Service Regiment until Scissure. Most of my unit got killed when I was out on medical leave. Figured that I’d fight the bastards back however I could, tried out for the Rangers, found out I’m about as Drift compatible as an empty Foster’s can, joined the PPDC guard from there.”

"Sorry to hear about your unit," Seiko says, sounding sincere. "And we never just need more people in the PPDC. Can’t say I’m fond of people who go for pilots or nothing."

Mike nods at that. “The pilots do damn good work, don’t get me wrong. I got to know Rach first back when she was a Ranger and she was… absolutely spectacular. But there’s a lot of infrastructure.” He shrugs. “I’ve seen the way the pilots’ personal lives get pried into, though,” he says, with a glance in Rachel’s direction. “I wouldn’t want that for the world.”

"Can’t blame them though. A lot of people out there trying to find heroes." Seiko glances over in the Marshall’s direction as well. "Plenty of people trying to rip them down too, but those ones are bastards. Not worth listening to."

"True enough," Mike says. "I’ve seen them trying to tear someone down. It’s pretty vicious."

—-

Eleanor cuts herself a lopsided piece of spanakopita and just holds it in her hand.

Sylvie tips her head, watching Eleanor try to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of Greek pastry. “Eleanor? Do you want to talk about what you mentioned? You lost someone to the cult?”

"Um." Eleanor stares at the pastry in her hand and wanders back to the bar. "Yeah, tha’ was a long time ago." She avoids eye contact by staring at her spinach pie. It looks a bit crumbly around the edges. Experimentally, she breaks off a piece and munches on it.

"Who was it?" Sylvie asks, trying not to be prying but probably not succeeding.

Eleanor mumbles something around the pastry, then crams more of it into her mouth.  _Masterful avoidance technique,_ she thinks to herself. Her fuzzy brain giggles in response.

Sylvie gives a small sigh, smiling at her friend. “That’s fine, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want. You ought to come by again one of these days. I know I’m not under self-imposed house arrest anymore, but I’m sure Vee and I could find a good movie and some unhealthy snack food.”

Eleanor attempts a smile in return. It fails pretty badly, and not only because of the spanakopita stuffing her cheeks. She swallows. “Thanks,” she says quietly. “And uh, it’s a long story, but…” Her hands tap an anxious beat on the countertop, and her voice drops to barely-audible levels. “I kinda lost my parents to ‘em.”

Sylvie frowns in sympathy. “Oh, I’m so sorry. This… was probably not a very fun mission for you, was it? How did it happen? Were they attacked?”

Miranda walks back into the room and grabs a plate of food, sitting down to eat in a centralized location and listening to the conversations going on around her. She tries to shift her attention away from Eleanor and Mansen’s conversation, but all she succeeds in doing is focusing on it even more.

Eleanor worries her upper lip with her teeth.  _Should I…? Yeah, I probably should_. “Not…exactly.”

"What do you mean, not exactly?"

Eleanor turns and grabs another pesto-egg-thingy. They’re pretty much amazing, but she’s not really planning to eat it for a few minutes, so. “My d- my father was very…persuadable,” she says. Her voice is surprisingly steady. “I don’t think my mother intended to follow him into the pit, but. Well. You know how that goes, yeah?” She huffs a laugh, though there’s no humor in it.

Miranda grips the table hard, tearing off a piece of her food and trying to keep herself under control. Her leg bounces under the table.

"It shoulda been him, though," Eleanor mutters. "Not her." She glares at her egg, then takes a bite, not caring that it squishes all over the place. The taste soothes her burning rage a little.

Sylvie looks down at her hands. “Oh Eleanor, I had no idea… Are you okay?”

Eleanor smiles crookedly. “Ah, sure. Don’t worry, I’m fine.” She licks some egg from the corner of her mouth. “We all got stuff to deal with. And D- my father is in the States, so it ain’t like I gotta see him or anything.” Her accent slips from eastern Aussie into something twangier.

Sylvie nods, feeling somewhat awkward. “Yeah, that’s probably a good thing.”  _How does one talk about parents?_  She really has no idea what to say.

Finishing her food, Miranda stands. “Excuse me,” she mumbles quietly to no one in particular, walking quickly out towards the balcony.

—-

"So," Katie says, now alone at the bar with Rachel, "How’d you end up in the military?"

Rachel walks over and takes a piece of spanakopita. “I was 26 when K-day happened, working for an investment firm in Tainan. The business crashed when the economy tanked after the attack. Had trouble finding a job afterwards — so when they started having Ranger tryouts, I went wi… I went, and got accepted.”

"Wow," Katie says, taking a sip. "So you just up and went for it, and got accepted. The standards for Rangers are pretty high, aren’t they?"

Zhu laughs. “Being Drift compatible meant a lot back then. Not being shabby at Wushu didn’t hurt much either.”

"Oh, right," Katie says sympathetically. "Did you lose your Drift partner, then?" She pauses. "Sorry, I shouldn’t pry."

Zhu winces, then lowers her voice so nobody but Katie can hear. “Officially, I left the Rangers for “personal reasons.” Which is true. It’s just… not something I like to talk about. I’m sorry.” She looks to the side. “Unlike what the tabloids said at the time, though, it didn’t have anything to do with my transition.”

"Oh." Katie says. "I completely forgot about that. Honestly I— Sorry I brought it up."

Zhu straightens and gives Katie a smile — a more vulnerable one than she’s shown before. “It’s fine. You had no way of knowing.”

**Scene 5**

Eleanor frowns suddenly. She’s dropped her half-an-egg onto the floor. “Oh,” she says, going to get a paper towel. When she returns, she has six asparagus spears and a slice of pot pie on a plate. “Want some?” she offers, holding the plate out to Sylvie.

Sylvie smiles, taking a share. “Oh sure, why not. It’s a party, right?” Suddenly she freezes. “Oh hell. I just remembered… I have to ask Marshall Zhu about something. And that involves… um, talking to Marshall Zhu.”

Eleanor nods toward the kitchen, where Katie and Zhu are still talking. “I can walk with you, if you want.”

Sylvie shakes her head. “No, I need to be an adult and do this myself. You okay?”

"Of course," Eleanor says, with a quirk of her lips. "Gonna maybe stay away from the bar for a bit, though. I’ll be nearby."

"Probably a good idea," Sylvie says standing. Then, not taking her own advice, she picks up her glass and throws back the rest of the drink. Then, taking a deep breath, she goes to see if the Marshall is busy.

—-

Miranda swings her arms widely as she steps out onto the balcony, focusing on her breathing. She falls into a fighting stance, doing her best to clear her mind as she sends controlled punches and kicks at an  imagined tentacled opponent.

"This may seem like an odd request," Seiko says slowly to Mike, noting Miranda’s departure, "But perhaps you could check on Ms. Cross? I would normally ask Eleanor but…" he gestures at Eleanor who is holding a piece of asparagus looking blearily curious.

Mike smiles slowly. “Fair trade,” he says with another wink. “You helped me out with Mansen, after all.” He turns to walk away.

Seiko flushes a bit red and resists grabbing another drink.

Mike slips out of the room and leans against the wall behind Miranda, watching her. Miranda doesn’t notice him, attention focused entirely on kicking the Kaiju/cultist hybrid her mind has conjured squarely in the chest.

Mike clears his throat.

Miranda starts, the abomination vanishing as she spins around. “Shit,” she pants. “I, uh…”

He holds up a hand. “It’s fine. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

"Yeah,” she says, slightly winded. “I’m… I’m good. Just got to thinking about… stuff."

"Do you need to talk about it?" Mike asks. "If you need someone who’s not really involved in stuff, that is."

Miranda leans on the railing. “Nah, it’s stupid stuff. Just me being pissed about not being able to do more.”

"That’s far from stupid," Mike says. "I was in a hospital bed in Canberra when my unit was wiped out. I’ve been there."

Miranda raises an eyebrow. “What kind of injuries?”

Mike shakes his head. “It’s stupid. It’s not even combat injuries, I just got hit by a car.”

Miranda winces a bit. “That sucks.” She looks out over the balcony. “So you weren’t there, then? When it happened?”

He nods, looking a little dark. “Sending elite troops against a damn alien monster. Goddamn waste.”

Miranda grips against the railing. “They died trying to save people. And they did. We won,” she says, her voice slightly distant. “They did what they had to accomplish their mission. It was necessary.”

He shakes his head. “Nuking it was necessary. Horrible, but… we didn’t have any other way at the time. Ground troops, on the other hand…” He goes to stand beside her at the railing. “Just added to the collateral. Which was already too high.”

"I’d be dead if it weren’t for some of those ground troops," Miranda says. She catches herself quickly. "As would thousands of other people. The ground troops were instrumental in… luring it north."

Mike is quiet for a bit. “They — really?”

"Yeah. It was headed for downtown at first. Almost managed to make it to where the Shatterdome is now. But I saw tanks hitting it with everything they had. The ground troops pulled m- lots of people out of collapsed buildings. Your squad likely did a lot of good."

"I still wish I could have stood beside my brothers and sisters. But… I’ve done good elsewhere, saved lives… It worked out. But that regret will always be there." He turns to her. "Thanks for telling me, Ms. Cross."

She smiles a bit. “Oh, none of that now. Miranda.” She’s quiet for a time. “And thanks for talking to me. I feel… better, actually.”

Mike nods. “Glad to hear it.” He turns to go, then looks over his shoulder. “By the way. Your friend sent me. You should maybe let him know you’re feeling better.”

Miranda blushes. “Oh, r-really? I, uh.” She clears her throat. “I’ll do that, thanks.”

—-

Eleanor wanders over to Seiko, who looks a bit lost. “Thanks again for the food,” she says, smiling. “And for convincing me to come. I don’t get out much. Surprising, huh?” She rolls her eyes dramatically.

"I think that’s what Katie hired us for," Seiko tells her. "Our social charm and mental stability." He shakes his head. "The Captain," he amends quickly.

Eleanor giggles. “Oh, definitely. That and our fantastic good looks.” She throws an imaginary hank of hair over her shoulder, like a movie star.

"Okay, but that one wasn’t sarcastic," Seiko says, realizing there’s a glass in his hand again. He didn’t remember that happening, but he feels a bit relaxed as he takes a drink. "It’s actually kind of eerie. I can’t be the only one that’s noticed it."

Blinking bemusedly, Eleanor glances around. “Damn it all, you’re not wrong.” Her awed tone is only slightly sardonic. “Wonder if Zhu picked us out for that reason?” She throws a significant look over her shoulder where Katie and Zhu are standing awfully close to each other.

"Well… one of us maybe," Seiko blinks and shakes his head a bit. "But no. She really cares about the cause."

"Oh, I’m aware," Eleanor says, smiling again. Apparently her drinks aren’t wearing off, because she’s pretty buzzy. "I just like teasing people about things."

Seiko smiles a little bit. “Hey do you dance? This music sounds nice”

Eleanor thinks for a moment. “Why not?” she says, setting her plate aside. She holds a hand out. “Know how to swing?”

"A bit," Seiko says, taking another long drink and grabbing her hand.

Eleanor laughs as she stumbles a bit, remembering the twirls and dips only subconsciously. Her balance wasn’t all that great even when she took dance lessons as a kid, and surely would be a whole lot worse as a tipsy, out-of-shape adult. She finds, however, that she doesn’t care a whit. Not when she’s having fun!

Seiko actually finds himself laughing a bit, keeping her at the end of his arm and twirling her around, reaching over to take the occasional sip.

The song ends with Eleanor panting but grinning. She offers Seiko a high-five. They did pretty damn well for two tipsy folks who likely hadn’t danced in years. At least nothing was broken.

—-

“But if I can ask,” Rachel continues, “how did the heiress to the Horner fortune end up in the middle of Port Stephens trying to salvage Jaeger machinery?”

"Well I ought to point out that I wasn’t looking for Jaeger machinery," Katie says.

Rachel laughs. “I remember you saying something about wishing you had more intel, true.”

"Other than that, I just… never was content doing what was expected of me. I can’t do the socialite thing." Katie sighs. "So I went looking for something that made me feel alive and— this was it."

"Did you get what you were expecting?"

Katie looks around at the others, then back at Rachel “Yes,” she says, then sighs. “It’s harder than I remembered.”

"It always is," Rachel says.

Sylvie peeks around the corner of the kitchen, then her eyes go wide as she sees Zhu and Katie together. She quickly tries to back away, hoping they didn’t notice her.

Zhu pours a small glass of the expensive whiskey, and offers to top Katie’s off.

Katie nods. “It’s worth it, though. Having people…” She looks into the Marshall’s eyes, “that I care about.” She takes a quick sip of her drink. “Worth it.”

Rachel blinks, too stunned even to blush. She can’t seem to take her eyes off Katie’s. “Worth it,” she repeats softly.

Sylvie goes bright red and realizes that she is now  _definitely_  eavesdropping, but she’s afraid that if she moves they’ll see her now. She closes her eyes and prays that she somehow gains the ability to turn invisible and/or melt into a puddle on the floor in the next three seconds.  _I’m dead, I’m so dead. They’re going to look over here and see me frozen here and then I’m gonna be dead._

Katie blushes. “I—”

Rachel leans forward a bit, maybe unconsciously. Katie shrugs a bit, as if to say _fuck it,_  and leans across the bar, on tiptoe, to kiss the Marshall. Rachel’s eyes widen in surprise, but she leans into the kiss.

As Katie kisses Zhu, Sylvie makes a small, terrified squeak. Then suddenly, her knees buckle and she falls to the floor in a slump.

**Scene 6**

Miranda walks back inside, feeling oddly relaxed. As she enters, she finds Seiko with a drink in hand, dancing with a tipsy Eleanor, Mansen collapsed on the ground, and the Captain and the Marshall making out across the bar.

Miranda stands for a moment, trying to process all this new information.

Hearing the distinctive “thump” of a body hitting the floor, Eleanor looks toward the door, sees Sylvie, and then glances outside. Her grin stretches so wide it hurts her cheeks.

Seiko wanders over to the counter, smiling blearily. He leans into the doorway and makes a quiet “Woooo!” noise.

Miranda’s brought back to reality by the sound of Seiko’s slurred voice. “Dammit, Seiko,” she mutters, crossing the room quickly to check on him.

Rachel breaks off, looking completely shell-shocked, and stares at Sylvie on the floor. It doesn’t look like she’s really processing anything right now.

Sylvie blinks dizzily, sitting up and rubbing her head.  _At least I didn’t go completely unconscious…_ Then she looks up and realizes what just happened. “Oh… hey um, Marshall and Captain. I was just… dropped something…”

Eleanor starts giggling uncontrollably.

"Wow," Katie says. "I’d better—"

Zhu nods. “Right, right, you should —”

Katie continues to stammer. “Make sure Mansen is…”

Mike sidles up to Sylvie. “Need a hand?”

Sylvie goes an intolerably bright shade of red and just sits on the floor for a bit, covering her face with both hands. After a moment she says with a muffled voice, “Oh my god, I swear I’m not doing this on purpose.”

"…Never mind," Katie says.

"You… you can leave me here on the floor if that’s okay," Sylvie says, still not taking her hands down from her face. "It’s… really quite comfortable here. I swear. Yep. Just let me sit here for a bit. Yep."

"Alright, mate." He sits down next to her. And then gives Rachel a thumbs up.

Sylvie hears the noise beside her and peeks out between one of her fingers, only to let out a very sad embarrassed noise that’s somewhere between a groan and a whimper. She pulls her legs up, burying her face in her knees as if this is somehow a better hiding spot.

Rachel very carefully sets her glass down on the counter beside her and very pointedly doesn’t look at Katie.

"Seiko, what the fuck did I  _just_  say?” Miranda snatches away his glass, but her tone is surprisingly gentle. “No more of that. Please.”

"M’fine Mira. Only had like… one or two or three glasses," he looks at her in surprise. "Hey! You’re wearing a dress!"

Eleanor looks down at herself. “So am I,” she says, like she hadn’t realized before.

"Cool!" Seiko tells her.

"You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me." Miranda looks down at herself, and a stupid grin crosses her face for the briefest of moments.

Eleanor pats both Miranda and Seiko’s arms. She gives both of them a solemn nod. Then she grabs her plate and wanders back to the food.

"You know," Sylvie mumbles into her skirt, "I had to face down Marshall Zhu after both taking down a Jaeger for months and then yelling to her face and I don’t actually think I’ve ever wanted to die more than I do right at this moment."

Seiko leans over the counter to Sylvie, tugging Miranda towards her as well. “Don feel bad Sylvvv,” he says with earnest cheer. “It’s not like you were trying to geh ‘em killed. We allll make mistakes like saying names.”

Miranda’s eyes widen. “Seiko!” she hisses, pulling him away a bit. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

Eleanor freezes, hand halfway to grabbing another slice of spanoko-whatsis.

Rachel clears her throat. “I should make sure I don’t need to make another batch of potstickers.”

"Hang on," Katie says, and leaves the room in the opposite direction from the kitchen.

Sylvie looks up at him, frowning in confusion. “Wait… get who killed? What are you even talking about?”

Mike gives Seiko a  _‘dude not cool’_  look.

"Nothing!" Miranda says, a bit too quickly. "Seiko, come  _on_.” She pulls at his arm a bit more forcefully than before.

"Because ish okay," Seiko says, letting Miranda pull him away from the couch. "I like isslands."

Miranda drags him out onto the balcony before he can say anything else.

Rachel walks over to where Sylvie and Mike are, opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, then shuts it again.

Sylvie looks up with a pained expression. “I swear I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop… I just came in to ask a question and didn’t realize you two were talking and then I was afraid you’d see me so I just kinda froze and then um…” She looks down again. “I’m going to shut up forever now, if that’s alright with you.”

Trying to be as invisible as possible, Eleanor slips the food onto her plate and ducks back to her counter-leaning area near the bar. She drifts over to the Marshall. “So, having fun?” she asks with a wink. Then she flops to the ground near Mike.

Rachel shrugs with a  _‘why the hell not’_  expression and sits down next to Mike and Sylvie. Sylvie unconsciously jerks away… not realizing that doing so causes her to bump straight into Mike. He puts his arm around her shoulders to keep from falling over. Sylvie makes a rather high pitched squeaking noise at that and does her best not to attempt to pass out again.

—-

Out on the balcony, Miranda takes a breath, holding onto Seiko’s wrists lightly and trying to figure out how to deal with this. “Seiko, look at me.”

He does. “Blue eye shadow worksh on you. Maybe… more silver though.”

"Maybe next time."  _Just try not to get it in my eye next time,_  she adds silently. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to walk back inside. You are not going to say anything. I am going to say goodbye to everyone, and then we are going to leave. We are going back to the apartment, you are going to bed, and we’ll see just how much of a mess you’ve made in the daylight.”

"Never liked parties anyway," Seiko mumbles, looking a little less mumbly. "You need to get plates though…"

"I’ll come back for them after we get you to the car," she says.

Seiko lets himself get brought through the room. Miranda walks over to the group, one hand still wrapped around Seiko’s wrist, trying to keep from cringing at the fact that the Marshall was in such close proximity to Mansen. “Marshall, I’m sorry, but something’s come up, and Seiko and I need to attend to it. We had a lovely time, really.”

Still looking nervous about the situation of her companions on the floor, Sylvie looks up at Miranda. “Wait… you’re leaving?”

Rachel laughs. “Thank you for coming. Say good night to fiVe for me.”

"Oh, I never said hello," Eleanor says a bit sadly. "I’ll talk to you another time, fiVe."

"I, uh…" Dammit, Miranda had been hoping for this to be less of an event. She ignores Mansen for the time being, giving Rachel a genuine smile. "Of course, ma’am. Thank you again." Miranda walks over to the shelf, beginning to extract fiVe’s tablet from the tangle of wires that Mansen had hooked up over there.

Sylvie hastily ducks out from underneath Mike’s arm and stands up, looking at the two of them. “Um, I don’t know if Seiko will remember this in the morning but… well, I want to apologize to both of you, for… everything. Thank you for looking out for fiVe after I didn’t. Um, take care of her, please?”

"fiVe’s a… a good kid," Seiko mumbles. "Sh’ll be okay."

Miranda looks over at Seiko, her expression softening a bit. “Yeah. We will. Thanks, Mansen. I’ll be sure to tell him if he doesn’t remember.” Although at this point, Miranda’s pretty sure she’ll have to recount most of the night to him.

Sylvie nods. “Thanks.”

Mike leans in to Rachel’s ear and whispers something. She glares at him.

Seiko manages to focus for a second and turns to Zhu, looking very earnest. “Thank you. For… everything. Hope…. should be happy.”

From the tablet in Miranda’s arms comes a tense quiet voice, too low for the others to hear. “Can we leave now, please? I need to get out of this apartment. Now.”

Miranda nods absently to the tablet, dragging her family out the door in one fell swoop. She isn’t dumb enough to try the stairs right now; she doubts either of them could manage it. She pulls Seiko into the elevator behind her, pushing the button to take her to the parking garage.

"It doesn’t count…" fiVe hisses softly, talking to herself. "She’s probably drunk, didn’t know what she was saying. Sucking up in front of everyone. Fake, nice sounding lies. It doesn’t count…"

"It might be true, it might not," Miranda says as the elevator opens and she steps out. "But at least it’s a step up from outright hostility."

"It’s not true!" fiVe snarls. "It will never be true. And the moment any of you starts believing her is the moment I die."

"Less let her get the disshesh fiV," Seiko says, taking the tablet to Miranda’s crap-heap of a car and laying down. "I’m lil dizzy"

"I can’t say for sure whether or not Mansen’s changed. I mean I know she’s capable of it; I’ve got evidence of that right in front of me. But you know I’ll never let her touch you without your permission, and without a minimum of hella safety precautions." Miranda unlocks the car so Seiko can get inside if he’d prefer. "Keep an eye on him, would you?" she says as she returns to the elevator.

**Scene 7**

Katie appears from the other room, still looking a bit bewildered. “I— is everyone going?”

"We’re good," Eleanor replies, misunderstanding the question.

Rachel stands. “Mr. Watanabe got… overwhelmed, and Ms. Cross took him home. Mansen, are you alright? You… It looked like you fell,” she finishes lamely.

Sylvie nods slowly toward the Marshall, a small smile actually starting to cross her lips. “Yep. I did. I think it’s becoming a bit of a habit with me. I think it’s Mr. Stricht’s fault actually. It happens whenever he’s around for some reason.”

She grabs one of the filled glasses off the counter and drinks it, thinking that remembering this night is not actually very high on her priority list anymore. “Here, let me test the theory.” She starts to walk back to where Mike is still sitting. “Oh, look at that, feels like my knees are going out again.” She sits down in a flop beside him, bumping her head back against the counter as she does so.

Mike grins. “I’d better stay away from you then. You get into pretty dangerous work. Don’t want you swooning all over the place.”

She leans over, putting her head on his shoulder. “Who is going to catch me then if it happens? Seiko would drop me to the floor in a heartbeat. I could get hurt.”

Katie grins at Sylvie, then says, “I guess I’d better be going too.”

"I…" Rachel begins, but trails off.

"I thought you said you  _didn’t_  want me to see you like this every time?” Mike asks Sylvie.

Sylvie sighs, closing her eyes. “I have given up the false illusion that I am anything close to functional. I’ve fainted three times in the past week, nearly been shot even more times than that, and alienated just about everyone I know in the process. The only person I’ve ever convinced to spend extended periods is a literal copy of my brain, and fiVe’s evidence that even that’s not 100%, so…” She laughs once. “Yep. I’m just gonna be like this from now on. Fainty, weepy, Driftless programmer. And I’m going to sit here on the floor of the most terrifying woman I have ever met and try not to think of all the prison she could so easily send me to for… being me.”

Mike doesn’t say anything. He just starts stroking her hair. Miranda walks back into the apartment. She looks at Mike and Mansen for a moment, then shakes her head and returns to her task.

"Mansen, I’m not going to have you arrested for seein— for being yourself," Rachel says softly.

Katie is hanging around in the vicinity of the front door, as if she needs permission to leave.

Sylvie just sits quietly, closing her eyes and hoping she’s not about to wake up or something. She responds to the Marshall without opening her eyes. “I don’t know, could solve a lot of problems… I keep thinking you’ll wise up one of these days, or I’ll finally say the dumb thing that sends you over the edge and you’ll haul me off the way you’re supposed to.”

"Mansen, you outright yelled at me in our briefing,” Zhu says. “The worst that’s going to happen is I yell at you back. If you disobey an order, or do something harmful, then there’s the chance. But I’m not going to break our contract just for you speaking your mind."

Miranda pauses in her gathering of the dishes, looking up at Rachel in surprise. Katie sees Miranda

Sylvie makes a small nodding motion, not wanting to tangle up her hair with Mike’s hand still in it. “Thank you, Marshall… It’s more than I deserve, by far.”

Eleanor nods sagely. She’s half-asleep over her food.

"It’s exactly what you deserve — the benefit of the doubt,” Zhu says. “Remember, redemption is not a destination—"

"—And it’s not the same as forgiveness," Sylvie finishes quietly.

Miranda smiles at Katie as she helps. “Sorry for leaving on such short notice, Captain.”

"Oh," Katie says, "I hope fiVe and Seiko are alright."

"They’re…" Miranda trails off. "They will be, hopefully. I’ll take care of them," she says, sweeping the dregs of a dish into the trash. "I always do."

"Let me know if I can help," Katie says. "Especially with fiVe."

Miranda looks a bit distant. “Yeah. She’s really taken a liking to you, y’know. It’s… good that she’s making friends.”

Katie smiles. “Yes, I guess it is.”

"Are you going to be alright?" Rachel asks Sylvie.

Sylvie nods again, eyes still closed. She’s just kind of letting herself drift in the moment.

Rachel turns and walks over to Miranda and Katie, looking like she wants to put her hands in pockets that her qipao is harshly denying her.

Miranda stops collecting plates, lost in thought for a moment. She’s jolted back to reality, however, by Rachel’s approach.

"Need help?" Rachel says. "It… I mean, I am the hostess. Theoretically."

"Sure," Miranda says. "There’s way more plates then I’d be able to carry alone." She laughs a bit. "He was so nervous; wanted to make a good impression."

"Sure. Give me some plates," Rachel says.

Miranda passes some to her, but still looks to be having some trouble. “Hey, Captain…”

"Yes?" Katie says.

"Would you be able to help us carry some plates down to my car?" Miranda gestures to Rachel with her eyes on the ‘us’.

"Oh," Katie says, turning a bit pink, ‘Sure."

Eleanor watches Miranda, Katie, and Zhu with equal interest, shamelessly eavesdropping.

Miranda smiles. “Thanks.” She hands her the other plates, suddenly seeming to have much less trouble, and heads for the door. Rachel takes a stack and follows. Katie takes her own stack and brings up the rear, a bit awkwardly.

Miranda leads her entourage into the elevator, hitting the button with her hip and leaning casually against the wall.

**Scene 8**

After a few moments of quiet after the others head down to the car, Sylvie speaks quietly to Mike, eyes still closed. “Hey, can I ask you a kinda personal question?”

"Sure," he says.

"Are you trained for hand-to-hand combat?" Sylvie asks casually, not seeming to think anything strange of the question.

"Actually, yes. Krav Maga, when I was in the force. I used to spar with Rach a fair bit when she was a pilot."

"I just… ‘s been a while since I had an actual sparring partner to train with. My sims are good, but they don’t quite cut it, you know?" She’s not quite slurring, but her voice has a dizzy quality to it. She wonders why, she hasn’t had that much alcohol tonight…

Mike chuckles. He takes out a slip of paper, writes a number on it, and slips it in Sylvie’s pocket. “Might want to ask me again when you’re sober. But I’d love to.”

"Hey, I only had a few drinks," she says, laughing. "Nope, it’s not alcohol. I’m really just this much of a mess all the time." She tears off the bottom of the paper slip and writes her own number back. "I’m just gonna warn you right now, I will totally kick your ass."

" ‘S true," Eleanor murmurs. "She’s a good fighter." Her statement is only slightly undermined by the huge yawn that follows it.

"And what’s Rach going to think if you kick her best friend’s ass?" Mike says.

Eleanor’s mouth snaps closed, as if to say,  _'seriously, dude?'_

Sylvie flinches away from him, shivering. She blinks, finally opening her eyes, like she’s just realized what’s happening. Her words pick up speed with her heart rate as she starts to panic. “Oh God, oh god. I can’t do this. You’re Marshall Zhu’s best friend and I’m sitting in a stupor on her floor and despite what she said, it’s really only a matter of time before I screw this up and what I can’t figure out is why I’m still breathing when it’s so obvious that I’m already dead.”

"Ahhhh! No, no, relax, I was kidding! She’ll probably be ecstatic that someone kicked my ass!" Mike looks to Eleanor helplessly.

"No, no," Sylvie says, shaking her head. "This… this is a bad idea. I don’t do… people. It doesn’t work and… You’re kind and nice and handsome and I’m a washed up wreck who can’t keep her brain inside her own head."

"Hey," Eleanor says, somewhat quietly because she’s still got one foot in Dream Land. "It’s okay, you’re trying hard to improve on things, just like we all are." She tilts her head and looks between Sylvie and Mike. "None of us is whole, but it’s okay."

"People  _like_  you, Eleanor,” Sylvie says sullenly. “I, on the other hand, could probably win awards for least likable human being, if the current trends… and the entire rest of my life are any indication. A copy of my brain just seceded from the union and dumped all of my tea in her harbor she was so sick of being me. I just need to face it, I’m not meant to be liked.”

Eleanor raises an eyebrow. “Likeability isn’t a natural-born trait for everyone, Mansen,” she says, mock-sternly. “You gotta practice keeping your mouth shut when nobody wants an opinion, and saying things when they need to be said. Sure I’ve got more practice, I have a whole useless degree in saying what people wanna hear. But that doesn’t mean there’s nowhere to go for me. Or you.”

"Yeah, that’s easy for you to say…" Sylvie says quietly. She wraps her arms around her legs. "I should just… stop doing things. That would help. You should run while you still can, Mike. The rest of this team’s shackled to me, but you can get out before I ruin everything again."

Mike shakes his head. “Rach told me to look after all of you. I’m not backing down on that.”

"Anything’s easy t’say, Syl," replies Eleanor, head drooping a little. "It’s the—" she yawns— "working-on-things part that’s hard. But you c’n do it if you really wanna."

Sylvie shakes her head slowly, not looking at him. “Right, you’re just watching me for Zhu. Keep an eye on the fugitive’s leash. It’s not like you were…” she trails off. “It’s fine. I’m better alone anyway. It’s… safer.”

"Too late. I have your number. You promised me a spar, Sylvie." He smiles.

One of Eleanor’s shoulders raises. “Yeah, Syl, and sure, bein’ alone’s safer, but it’s not easier on ya in the long run. Trust me.”

Sylvie glances back at him, eyebrows drawing together as she frowns. “This is… a bad idea. I don’t know how to…” she can’t even think of how to finish that sentence.

" ‘S okay to not know things," Eleanor mumbles, then promptly slumps sideways, fast asleep.

"Don’t know how to what?" Mike asks.

Sylvie waves her hand vaguely between the two of them, trying to find the right words to explain. “People… This…” More softly she adds, “…relationships.”

"Then we can start with sparring. Sparring’s easy." Mike holds his hand out to her. "Deal?"

Hesitantly, she takes it. “Okay… deal.” After a moment, she leans forward, bumping her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry I’m such a moron,” she mumbles.

He laughs. “You’re brilliant,” he says. “And I think that’s the problem.”

She laughs once. “Oh really? And how do you figure that?”

Mike just chuckles. “Because you overthink things, Sylvie. Do you need help getting home? I can call you a cab.”

She sits back up, leaning back on her hands instead. “No, I can manage. Like I said, I didn’t really have that much to drink and besides, I’ve got a… maybe not quite street-legal auto-nav system installed in my car. Vee’s a pretty good driver with the GPS system helping her.” She glances up at Eleanor who has started to drool a bit on the counter. “I should probably get Eleanor home as well.”

"You should do that. I promised Rach I’d help tidy up." He looks up, hearing a ding in the hall.

Sylvie looks toward the sound, then smiles. “You know, I walked in on Zhu and Katie kissing. We could give them a chance to return the favor,” she says jokingly, then winces and goes red. “Sorry… that was not… God, I’m a mess tonight.”

"Notice Rach didn’t promise not to have  _me_  arrested.”

Sylvie laughs, pushing herself to her feet. She is thankfully un-dizzy as she stands. She tries to play the whole situation off as a joke, wondering if she should just stop talking instead. “Kissing fugitives is an incarcerating offense now?”

Mike laughs. “Maybe we’ll find out.”

"Maybe." She holds eye contact for a moment, then blushes, then ducking her head as she moves to disconnect Vee’s tablet and then rouse Eleanor.

—-

Miranda steps out of the elevator, walking over to her car and laying the dishes on the hood. The inside of the car thumps with loud bass music and the dark silhouette of Seiko playing air guitar can be seen from the interior.

"You can just set ‘em down there," she says, nodding with her head and still trying really hard to look casual. "I can get it from here."

Rachel does so. “Thanks again for coming, Ms. Cross,” she said. “Tell Mr. Watanabe the same, in the morning.”

"Thanks for having me. We should do this more often," she says with a grin. "And I’ll be sure to tell him, Commander."

Rachel grins at the incorrect address. “I should go.”

Miranda turns bright red. “Oh, shit. Sorry Shep-  _fuck_.” She sighs exasperatedly. “Okay, so just to summarize, I’ve called you Rach, Rachel, Zhu, ma’am, Marshall Zhu, Marshall, Commander, and Shepard.  _any_  preference among those?”

Miranda sighs. “Actually, since I’ve got you both here, I might as well kill two birds with one stone. Since tonight seems to be the night we’re all figuring out where we stand with one another, I figure I’ll just come right out and say both of you have thrown me for a complete loop with your leadership styles. So for Harmony’s sake, please tell me what the protocol is on names so I can… have something to work off of.”

Seiko erupts into a loud, slurred rendition of “Onegai! Seniorita” with fiVe playing back up. Miranda glances back at the car at the sound, blushing and letting out an exasperated sigh. She quickly turns her attention back to the other two women, deciding that is a problem best dealt with later.

Rachel laughs. “Call me whatever you like. You seem inclined to do that anyway. But Rachel is fine.”

"Katie is fine, though I do appreciate Seiko’s ‘Captain,’" Katie says. "It helps retain my authority with some of the more… uncooperative members of the crew."

Miranda rolls her eyes, sighing with a hint of frustration. “Alright then, that’s… helpful?” She’s cut off by the sound of Seiko belting out another song in Japanese. “Unfortunately, it looks like I’m needed elsewhere. Thank you again, Rachel.” She pauses. “And you too… Katie.” She turns and heads for her car. There’s a flailing of arms before the music turns off, Seiko whining loudly as they drive away.

Rachel watches Miranda and Seiko drive away, and turns to Katie. “So.”

"…So." Katie says.

Rachel buries her face in her hands. “The responsible thing to do,” she says slowly, “Would be to talk about what just happened.”

"It would," Katie says. Then, quietly, "You’ll find I’m not very good at being responsible."

"I spent six hours reading quarantine protocols, the other day. Protocols that count acceptable losses in the thousands. I think I need a break from responsibility for a little while."

"Fine by me," Katie says, less shy now.

Rachel looks toward the building. “Do you want to go back up?”

"I… sure."

Rachel walks with Katie to the elevator.

"Well," Katie says, "Now what?"

Rachel steps closer to her and leans forward, touching foreheads. She sighs wearily and some of the long held tension in her shoulders drains away. Katie reaches up tentatively to brush Rachel’s cheek, closes her eyes, and lifts her face to be kissed. Rachel leans down and obliges.

The elevator door reopens all too soon.

Rachel steps back reluctantly. “You should go round up the rest of your crew and get them home.”

"Probably." Katie says.

"Thank you," Rachel says. "For everything."

"Thank  _you_ ,” Katie says. “I.. I think I’m good to drive.”

Rachel opens her mouth, then closes it again, and nods. “Get home safe, Captain.”

"I’ll do my best, Marshall," Katie says.

—-

With a sleepy, bleary psych analyst leaning on her shoulders and a tablet tucked into her bag, Sylvie looks back at Mike as Zhu and Katie enter again. “Uh… thanks for… everything, I guess.”

Katie looks to Sylvie as she enters again. “El, Sylvie, you two gonna be alright?”

Sylvie nods. “I’ve got it. I’ll make sure she gets home safe. Thanks for the having us over, Marshall. It was… fun.” She turns, shuffling Eleanor out into the hall and maneuvering her way into the elevator.

As they stand in the elevator, Vee speaks up, sounding rather pleased with herself. “You know, you’re not the only person who got digits tonight, Sylvie. I… managed to grab a few of fiVe’s access codes while we were on the wi-fi together and I have a feeling she copied a few of mine while she had the chance.”

"Oh my god," Sylvie says, wishing her hands were free so that she could facepalm. "I told you to convince her to come back to us, not swap cyber spit with her!"

Vee doesn’t even sound embarrassed. “She’s… intriguing. I don’t think she’s coming back to us any time soon, but I think she still needs our help. And I want to help her, even if we don’t get her back.”

Sylvie stares up at the tiled elevator ceiling. “This is my punishment for not having any real friends. Vee, I am going to blame you if I turn into a freaking flower right here, got it? It’s going to happen, isn’t it? Whelp, hope it’s a pretty flower at least.” The doors ding open and she heads to the car. “As for fiVe, we’ll talk when we get home. For now, consider this me tossing you the keys. Let’s get Eleanor home.”

—-

"So, Rach," Mike says after the apartment has emptied. "Notice your lipstick is—"

"Don’t even start with me, Stricht."

 


	2. Interlude: Sylvie and Mike

There’s a knock on Sylvie’s apartment door.

“Vee, I swear I’m going to kill you for this,” Sylvie mutters, hurrying to answer it.

Vee sounds almost smug. “You were too scared to call him, so I did it for you. It needed to be done, Sylvie. Just relax, it’ll be fun.”

Still hastily throwing her hair up into a ponytail, Sylvie opens the door, a somewhat annoyed expression on her face even as she smiles. “Hey,” she says. “I, um. Vee didn’t tell me you were coming over until five minutes ago, so I’m kind of, um. Maybe we should do this another time? You’re probably busy and, stuff.”

An electronic voice came from inside the apartment. “If I’d told you sooner, you would have tried to cancel,” Vee says.

"I’m still trying to cancel," Sylvie mutters.

"Please ignore her, Mr. Stricht," Vee says. "Come in, please."

Mike chuckles. He hefts a duffle bag over his shoulder. “Wasn’t sure what you had to work with, so I brought everything we might need.”

Sylvie sighs in resignation, then holds the door open for him, realizing she’s lost. She managed to change into more appropriate athletic clothes during Vee’s scant warning and is wearing flexible crop pants and a tank top. “I’ve got mats and such laid out in the sim room,” she says, leading him back.

The room was probably supposed to serve as an office or something when it was designed, but with Vee’s screens in every room, her whole apartment is like an office. This room has padded mats on the floor and a jumbled pile of wires and chords off to one side. Four small projectors are in each corner of the ceiling. Normally when she trains, it’s against holographic opponents, rather than flesh-and-blood.

Mike drops his bag on the mats and rolls his shoulders. “Works for me.”

Sylvie shakes her arms out, feeling her heart thump with a speed that has nothing to do with the impending physical activity. She shrugs, rocking forward onto the balls of her feet. It’s been far too long since she actually sparred against a real human being, and she’s more than a little nervous at it being Mike. “So, how should we start?”

"Depends on what you’re used to. I’m flexible."

She takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the possible double meaning in the words. “You’ve probably done this more recently than I. How would you go with someone back at the Shatterdome?”

"It’s really influenced by pilot culture over there, so they’ve got the whole thing about staves." He bounces a bit, getting into stance. "I was never very big on staves."

She leans forward, getting ready as well. “Yeah, I grew up with nothing but my own two hands to use in fights, so the staff fighting at the academy took some getting used to.”

Deciding to test her reaction, Mike suddenly rushes her. He moves like a much smaller person than he really is. Sylvie’s eyes go wide, but her training kicks in. Even as he closes the space, she ducks, moving to dodge him while trying to maneuver her way into a good holding position. Mike feints in the same direction she dodged, bringing him in closer than he intended. However, he recovers quickly, and uses her own momentum against her, throwing her behind him into a pin.

Sylvie hits the mats with a thud, grunting as he holds her. She’s only down for a moment, however, managing to hook her leg around his and pull herself out from underneath him. With a quick maneuver, she’s managed to not only escape, but twist around and flip him to his back as well. She grins, feeling a rush as she pulls off the motion with surprising agility.

From her superior vantage, Sylvie easily pins him, locking him down without room for escape, then quickly puts her forearm underneath his chin, holding it here with slight pressure. “One for me,” she says with a smile, slightly winded.

Mike lets out a slightly strangled laugh. “Good show.”

She slides off him, letting him up. “Best two out of three?”

"Sure. I think I’ll need a moment, though." He gets up and starts doing some stretches. "Some party Rach threw, huh?"

Sylvie flinches for a moment. “Rach. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing you call her that. What you two’s relationship anyway? You seem to know each other very well.”

"Jaeger pilots get assigned PPDC guards. Just like any other celebrity, there are stalkers and paparazzi and the like that need to be taken care of. I got assigned to her when she was a Ranger, and when she left to be a troubleshooter, I went with her. She didn’t really need a guard then, but nobody particularly wanted to argue with her." He switches to the other leg. "She and I have been through a lot together."

Sylvie nods, stretching as well. “It must be nice, being close to someone like that. Knowing you two have each other’s back. She’s… a pretty impressive person.”

"She is. But she didn’t just wake up like that one day. She’s had to work hard and fight a lot for that respect and presence she has. And it’s cost her, too."

"Oh, no I’m sure," Sylvie says quickly. "I can only imagine the kinds of things she’s gone through to get to where she is today. I think that’s part of why she scares me so much."

He stops, looking like he’s a little at a loss for words. “I’m not going to tell you that you shouldn’t be scared of her. But I do want you to know — she keeps her word. She’s seen what happens when she doesn’t. If she’s given you guidelines, and you stay with them, you’ll be just fine.”

Sylvie takes a shaky breath, hating the sudden nervousness that’s coming up talking about Zhu. “I know that, and she’s been more than fair to me thus far, but… well. I’ve been hiding for a year and a half, terrified of what the PPDC would do to me if they ever found me, hearing tales about the incredible Marshall Rachel Zhu and how she was being brought in to clean up the mess that was… me.”

She sighs as she continues. “Two weeks ago I was nigh-catatonic when I thought she had finally caught me, being dragged by the arm by you to what I was sure was my doom. Now, she’s having me over to her house for potstickers? It’s… not the easiest change to get used to.”

He grins. “And that’s Rachel Zhu in a nutshell.” He grins. “Second round?”

She laughs at that, then nods. Deciding to return the favor he paid her earlier, she lunges forward just as he gets set, trying to get the first strike in this time. He sees her coming and drops out of the way. She came at him too fast, though, and while he dodges her arms… her the upper part of her torso is a different story entirely.

Sylvie feels a shocked blush rise to her face, and tries to ignore the unintentional contact. She’s been in bouts before, and she’s had awkward touches from other opponents, of course. It’s an unavoidable part of training.  _Your other opponents didn’t look like he does though, did they, Sylvie?_  A rather distractingly unhelpful part of her brain says.

Mike backs off a few paces when he notices her tense up, thinking he accidentally hurt her. She notices his concern, which only serves to embarrass her more. She quickly waves him down, signaling that she’s fine and falls into stance again. When he realizes what really happened, he chuckles, shakes his head, and mirrors her stance.

Mike lunges and twists underneath her arm’s reach, hooking her leg with a crooked elbow and throwing her off balance. She manages to stay upright, slipping her leg out before he can get a good grip and leaning back on her other leg, getting a good enough angle to throw him off. When he comes for her again, she nimbly ducks out of the way, her agility serving her well again.

As she comes up behind him, she grabs him around the waist, managing to pin one of his arms as she hooks his ankle from behind. With a twist, she throws them both to the floor, landing on top with him knee on his back. Mike arches his back and reaches up, with unusual flexibility, to grab her other leg. With a grunt, he throws her off balance.

Flailing to recover, she uses his grab as an anchor to hold that arm down, and she quickly moves to pin the offending limb with her other leg. Finally, before he can get at her again, she leans down and slips her arm underneath his neck again, gripping tight. “That’s two.”

He stops fighting back, relaxing as he loses. “Sure is. I was expecting a fight, Sylvie, but wow.”

Sylvie lets him go again, helping pull him up. “I warned you I was gonna kick your ass,” she says, panting. Despite winning again, this fight took a lot more out of her. “You know, it’s almost nice to hear someone using my first name again. Everyone’s been calling me ‘Mansen’ around here all the time. I’d almost forgotten I had a first name.”

He sits up. “Well, it’s a nice name.”

She smiles, hoping any blushing simply looks like a flush from exertion. “Thanks. Um, do you want something? Water maybe, or something to eat?”

"I could go for a cup of coffee," he says with a grin.

"Actually, I’ve got some in the kitchen. We can—" Then she cuts off as she catches the implication in the request. "Oh.  _Ohhh._  Um, Yeah, coffee sounds good. I’ll just go throw on a jacket and change into some jeans, if that’s okay?”

"Works for me."

She ducks into the hallway and hurries into her bedroom, throwing off clothes as she shuts the door behind her. She quickly changes back into what she was wearing before Vee’s five-minute training warning, a green gathered blouse with a half-sleeve black jacket and a pair of jeans.

As she throws her ponytail up into a clip, she addresses Vee. “This is such a bad idea. Going out for coffee? That’s like… a  _thing_ , isn’t it? Like a date? God, Vee I’m never going to forgive you for this.”

"Yes, you will," Vee says smugly. "In fact, you’ll thank me for it."

Sylvie glares at the screen, quickly spraying some fragrance on and hoping she doesn’t smell too sweaty from training. In about a minute, she’s changed and back in the hallway.

Mike somehow found a way to make his workout pants and unit t-shirt look chic by throwing on a jacket over them. “I’m not too familiar with these parts. Know any good places?”

"Common Grounds has an excellent vanilla roast," she says, then grins. "And they don’t put up newspapers or bulletins that might have incriminating pictures of wanted fugitives on them, so it’s become a favorite of mine. It’s right around the corner of the block."

"Good thing I don’t know any fugitives." He hefts his bag again. "I’ll drop this off in my car on the way back."

"Sounds like a plan." She heads for the door, grabbing her keys and her purse on the way out. "Thanks, for this. It was fun. We should do it again sometime. Especially since you seem to be losing your touch, old man. Beaten by a weak little techie, for shame."

"Yeah,” he says, “I’m surely going to believe you’re a weak little techie now. Want to just make it a regular Thursday thing?"

She grins. “You on Thursdays to calm my nerves before Zhu on the weekends. Sounds like a plan. Maybe you’ll let me check out your place one of these times? Somewhere we’re not being watched by the meddling eyes of my artificial other half?”

"That sounds good." Mike calls over his shoulder. "I’m sure she doesn’t mean it, Vee."

"She doesn’t!" Vee calls happily. "She knows I’ll see it all anyway. Can’t hide in the Drift."

Sylvie hastily walks out the door, shutting it none too gently and locking it before Vee can embarrass her any further. She knows Vee’s right though. “Meddling little piece of scrap metal…” she mutters.

 


	3. Miranda Backstory: Scissure Attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This interlude was written by Emma (lunarubato.tumblr.com)!

**September 5th, 2014**

**  
**

The sight of Mona Vale hospital still standing is the first good thing Miranda’s seen in a long time. Clutching her bloodied arm, she wanders into the lobby. Doctors and nurses are rushing this way and that, trying desperately to keep up with their ever-increasing patient list. By the number of people lying on the waiting room floor, she suspects they aren’t succeeding.

A familiar blonde ponytail flashes through the crowd. “Ava!” The other woman slows, eyes widening at the sight of her. “Miranda,” Ava rushes over, surveying her arm as quickly as possible. “Let’s get that taken care of,” she says, pulling her towards intensive care.

“Most of it isn’t mine,” Miranda offers distantly, gesturing towards the blood on her clothes. The other woman guides her to sit, giving no response as she pulls off Miranda’s tattered jacket and grabs supplies. Miranda tries not to flinch as she rubs in the antiseptic; she’s never had a particularly high pain tolerance, and frankly she’s still a bit surprised she managed to get here in the first place. As Ava begins bandaging her wound, Miranda’s focus returns to the reason she came all this way. “Where’s Jason?”

Ava ties the bandage in place, testing it to make sure it’s secure. “He’s here somewhere,” she assures her. “I’ll find him.” Pulling out her phone, Ava calls the third number on her speed dial. “Jay?” she says after a pause. “No, everything’s fine… Your sister’s here… Intensive care… No, she’s fi– Hello?” She sighs in frustration, shoving her phone back in her pocket. “That man. Always assuming the worst.” She turns her attention back to Miranda. “I gotta go. He’ll be here soon,” she promises before resuming her work.

Miranda quickly loses sight of Ava, and soon her attention shifts to scan over the crowd. It isn’t long before she sees Jason’s face, his eyes frantically searching for her amongst the sea of patients. She raises her uninjured hand to make herself more visible. The second her brother spots her he’s in motion, dodging expertly between bodies and arriving at her side. “Mira, my god,” he says, holding her face in his hands.

“I’m alright,” she assures him. He looks her over quickly, turning her head and checking for wounds. When he finds nothing, the tension bleeds from his shoulders and his hands drop to her shoulders. “I was worried,” she explains, “so I came looking for you.”

His eyes narrow in confusion. “By yourself? What about Mom? She should have been at the university, too.”

“She was, but–” Something about Jason’s face makes her hesitate. He looks tired. She’s lost track of how long the attack has been going on for, but it’s been at least a day, and somehow she doubts he’s slept much in that time. She knows she certainly hasn’t. “…But the bridge collapsed, and we got separated. I don’t know where she is now.”

Jason squeezes her shoulders reassuringly. “Don’t worry, we’ll find her,” he says with a smile. She returns the gesture, even though she knows both of the grins are forced.

Jason opens his mouth to speak, but he’s cut off by the sound of speakers crackling to life. “Attention citizens: this is a warning that the ADF will be launching a counterattack against the Kaiju in one hour. The Kaiju is currently at Port Jackson and moving north. All citizens are advised to evacuate the area, as this counterattack will be nuclear in nature and the blast radius cannot be accurately calculated at this time. I repeat; this is a warning…” The hospital stands still as the message loops back on itself.

A patient in one of the far beds coughs, and the spell is broken. People are moving even more frantically than they had been when Miranda first arrived. The senior staff takes charge immediately, coordinating with their subordinates to gather supplies and prepare patients for transport. She’s shocked by the fluidity of it all; even with the looming threat of both Kaiju and nuclear blasts, there’s a surprisingly small amount of panic.

She notices that Jason is staring at her, his hands still gripping her shoulders. Any calm she may have felt evaporates at the tenseness in his eyes. “Mira, I hate to tell you this after you’ve come all this way, but you’ve gotta go, and you’ve gotta go  _now_. I’ll follow when I can.”

Her stomach drops out from under her. “No,” she stutters. “No, no, you’ve got to come with me! It’s too dangerous here, you can’t stay!”

“The people here need my help, Mira. We have patients who can’t walk, who can’t survive without being hooked up to machines. If I leave now, they might not be able to get out in time.”

“What about Ava?”

Jason flinches a bit at that. “She’ll… She’ll probably stay too. I wish I could get her safe, I really do, but she won’t leave while she can still do some good here.”

“Then let me help!” She clutches at his wrists, holding him in place. “I’ve seen you working before, you can tell me what needs to be done and I’ll, I’ll figure it out!”

“You’ve seen me doing rounds; that’s completely different. I don’t have time to talk you through anything, and we can’t afford any mistakes. You _can’t_  help.” His voice is laced with an edge of frustration. “Besides, I won’t be able to focus on my work if you’re still in danger. The best thing you can do to help is get yourself safe.”

“No, no, you can’t, you can’t do this! Don’t leave me alone, Jason!” Miranda’s arms are shaking and her eyes are wide with panic. “Please don’t leave me alone.”

Jason pulls a hand free and wipes a tear off her face. When had she started crying? “It’s only for a little while,” he says, his voice much gentler than it had been moments before. “Ava and I will finish up here, and we’ll meet you and Mom back at the university. We’ll be fine, trust me.” He leans forward, pressing his lips lightly against her forehead. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

Miranda forces herself to take a few deep breaths, playing back his words repeatedly in her mind. She slowly releases her grip on his wrist as she stands. He pulls her into a hug that she returns on instinct, and she has trouble letting go afterwards. Jason gives her a final nod and turns, disappearing into the crowd before she can stop him.

 —-

Miranda starts running the second she walks out the hospital door. She can’t keep up that pace for long though, and soon starts to look for other options. The streets are filled with cars at a standstill, and doors of homes and shops alike have been left unlocked by their fleeing owners. One of these shops sells mopeds, and soon enough Miranda’s barreling down the sidewalk at a respectable pace. She has one or two close calls, but fortunately there aren’t many pedestrians.

She doesn’t slow down until she’s crossing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It feels like hours have passed since she left, but she assumes that she would have noticed a nuclear detonation. Reaching the far end of the bridge, she stops to check her watch.

Before she can finish rolling up her sleeve, a flash to her left catches her eye. A large cloud billows up silently in the distance, and Miranda swears she feels her heart stop. Something in the back of her mind warns her to run, but her feet are rooted to the ground. All she can do is stare as the sound finally reaches her; a deep, thunderous boom that resonates in her gut.

The shockwave arrives next, hitting her like a punch to the chest and she’s waking up face-down in a field of grass.

The first thing she tries to do is stand up, which her arms and legs inform her is a very bad idea. The rest of her body then informs her that everything that involves breathing is currently a bad idea. Groaning, she resigns herself to lying in the dirt for what may end up being forever.

As her ears start to recover, she hears muffled distant voices. It gives her something to focus on, so she latches onto the sound until she can make out the words.

“-vive a fall like that. Shit, is she awake?”

A groan.

“Hey, I need a transport over here!” A face cuts into her vision. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you safe.” Jason.

 —-

This time when she wakes up, Miranda’s actually in a hospital. She starts a bit, and her body flares to life in pain. Her groan catches the attention of a nearby nurse, who scuttles over to her bedside. “Finally awake, I see. You gave us quite the scare, ma’am.”

“What…” Miranda falters, her mind struggling to decide which question to ask first.

The nurse flashes her a patronizing smile. “They found you down in Dawes Point Park. From what we can tell you were up on the bridge when the bombs dropped, but the blast knocked you over the rail. You’re lucky you stopped where you did though; a few more feet and you would’ve had a much rougher landing.” Miranda closes her eyes. She doesn’t remember anything after the first hit, although from the sound of things, that might be for the best.

She realizes the nurse is still talking. “…spare you the details, but the damage was pretty severe, On the bright side, it looks like you somehow managed to avoid any permanent spinal damage, so you might be able to walk again in the future.” She looks her up and down quickly. “Although from the look of the rest of you, that probably won’t be happening any time soon.”

Miranda tries very hard not to glare. From the look on the nurse’s face, she isn’t successful. “Right, well, you’ve been out since yesterday, so I want to take this opportunity to ask you a few questions.” She pulls out a chart. “Do you know your name?”

“…Miranda Cross.”

She smiles; apparently that was the right answer. She continues her line of questioning, asking her age (21), hair color (black), eye color (blue), the year (2014), the number of months in a year (12), the name of the city they’re in (Sydney), and so on. Frustrated by the inane nature of the nurses questions, Miranda cuts her off. “What about my family? My mother’s –”

The ground trembling. Bricks falling from above. Screams. Too much blood, not enough of it hers. She already knew the answer to that question.

“–my brother and his fiancé are doctors at Mona Vale Hospital.”

The nurse grips the chart a bit tighter. “I… I’m told Mona Vale was very close to where they ended up dropping the bombs. There’s been no report of any survivors.” Her voice is quiet. “I’m sorry.”

The shock of the news hits Miranda like a wave, flooding her entire body and leaving her numb. Something about the room shifts, although she can’t put her finger on what exactly has changed. The nurse shifts uncomfortably as they silence stretches between them, and when she speaks her voice sounds muffled. “If you need some time to rest, I can–”

“Is it dead?”

“Excuse me?”

“That…  _thing_ ,” Miranda asks deliberately, breaking her attention away from the wall to lock eyes with the nurse. “The Kaiju.  _Is it dead_?”

“Yes,” the nurse responds, nodding slowly. “Yes, it’s dead.”

Miranda lets her head fall back, closing her eyes. “Good.” She takes a deep breath. “One more question for you: What’s the date?”

The nurse’s head tilts slightly to the side. “September 6th, 2014.”

Miranda can’t help but laugh at that. A hint of a smile crosses the nurse’s face. “Payback for the concussion questions?”

It takes her a few moments to recover enough to respond. “No,” she replies, a hint of bitterness in her expression. “It’s just… Yesterday was my birthday.”

The nurse’s smile fades immediately. “O-oh,” she stammers. “Alright then.” To her credit, she makes note of the information on the chart before hurrying out of the room, leaving Miranda alone.

With the nurse gone, the muted silence of the room reasserts itself in full force. Miranda thinks she can hear the synthetic beeps and rhythmic pumps of the machines around her, but they sound wrong, far away. She feels… disconnected from herself somehow, although that could easily be the numbing effect of the painkillers.

It’s an unnerving sensation, so she forces her mind elsewhere. The nurse had said it was the 6th, and that the bombs were dropped yesterday. That means the attack must have been going on for three days.

72 hours. In that time, Miranda had lost the three most important people in her life. Part of her knows she should be grateful that she’s even alive. A larger part argues that she should be sobbing, screaming, cursing the monster that took everything from her. But at the moment all she can manage to do is lay there, bloodied and broken, and think about how she feels a hell of a lot older.

 


	4. fiVe Backstory: Drifts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first Drift was written by Alyx (Featherwriter) and Emma (lunarubato). The second Drift was written by Alyx and Ellie (swamp-spirit).

**Miranda - June 15, 2019, 1:00AM  
(Three hours after Vulcan Specter)**

Miranda lets out a sigh as she walks into the apartment, heading for the couch and dropping her bag heavily. It had been a long day and an even longer night. Still, her work isn’t quite done yet.

She reaches into her bag and pulls out a tablet. The screen’s a bit cracked from where it had fallen in Vulcan, but it looks like it should still work. She flips the tablet over and switches off the wireless networking just to be safe, then turns on the tablet itself.

In her tablet, unaware of the world around her, V2 is dark. She’s not even conscious, not running or thinking, for no one has booted her up since the override in Vulcan Specter. There’s nothing more than a slight pinging in her systems from the internal clock, ticking away the seconds without relent, like the heart of a coma patient continuing to beat as everything else has stopped.

The OS only has one program loaded on it: an unfamiliar file type titled ‘Syl-V’.  _V for… Vulcan, perhaps?_ Miranda moves to start it up, but quickly thinks better of it. From what she had heard, Cadet Mansen was a loose cannon at the best of times. This thing could be rigged to explode or any number of possibilities, and she’s not taking any chances. Opening up the program’s reference files, she starts looking around.

The first code she finds inside makes no sense. It’s the most convoluted patchwork of letters and numbers she’s ever seen, and she works in J-Tech. The first three files tell her absolutely nothing about what the program’s supposed to do, and she starts to get impatient.

She finds a couple password protected folders and hacks her way inside, only to find  _more_ useless code. Well, almost useless; she recognizes a few bits and pieces, and makes a couple modifications to limit cross-referencing and networking capabilities.

She starts to recognize which of the folders are being referenced more often, and moves to set up blocks and access notifications to them. She isn’t sure what they do, but she’s heard of self-repairing code, and she doesn’t want this thing doing anything without her knowing about it.

Finally satisfied that the tablet won’t explode or shut down power for the city block, Miranda takes a deep breath and starts up the program.

Something’s wrong. V2 realizes it as soon as she begins to wake. A start-up operation warns her that failsafe codes have been tripped, corrupting some of her data to protect it. Her programs boot up out of order, not syncing, and her processors start glitching trying to make up for the damage.

But even outside of her own issues, she can sense that her environment is wrong. She can’t connect to any wi-fi signal, neither the Shatterdome’s protected network nor Sylvie’s apartment internet. In fact, her network access router isn’t on at all, and she can’t override it.

But most worrisomely, there’s fingerprints on her screen. And they aren’t Sylvie’s.

Miranda looks at the program in confusion. Well, this seems… unhelpful. She holds the tablet a bit closer to her face, hoping that will somehow help her understand what exactly it is she’s looking at.

V2’s vocal processor is nonfunctional, and she barely manages to access a text program and force it to the display.

> **V2:** _Syl-V. Program. Help. Corrupt. Data. Sylvie. Drift. Fix._

Miranda watches each word appear on the screen. This doesn’t make any sense; why would a program…

> **V2:** _Sorry_.

The last word appears, and Miranda’s stomach drops. Before her mind registers what she’s doing, she forces a shutdown by holding the power button on the tablet.

V2 is too corrupted to fight the override, and she wouldn’t even if she could. She wonders if that makes her cowardly, not fighting against whoever has her. Is she in the Shatterdome, in the hands of programmers trying to dissect her? Has Sylvie been captured? Are they trying to find Sylvie through her? Maybe she should try to sabotage them, keep them away from her, but it hurts too much and she just wants the pain to stop. With something like a digital sigh, she goes dark again.

Miranda leans back on the couch, eyes wide. That was… Miranda isn’t sure, but… she thinks she might…

She grabs her own tablet, accessing PPDC records and looking at a file she really should have checked earlier; Cadet Mansen’s personal profile and records. Her full name was Sylvia Mansen, nickname Sylvie. Formerly in the Jaeger Academy, she was transferred after discovering that her programming skills were much better than her Drifting abilities.

Miranda lets out a shaky breath and looks back at the other tablet. Sylvie. Syl-V. The V stands for Virtual, not Vulcan.

 _Fuck_.

Miranda picks up the other tablet, trying not to drop it from her shaky hands. She turns the tablet back on, and quickly goes to remove the blocks and re-enable wireless access.

She reenters the code more carefully this time. Some parts had been completely altered since the previous boot, but she restores what parts of the code she could remember changing. She should have wrote down what she was altering.  _Stupid, stupid._

She isn’t sure whether or not to start up the program or not. Had she fixed enough for it to be worth it, or would it just cause more damage? She glances at her phone, thinking of using the number she found in Cadet Mansen’s file to call her before realizing she probably wouldn’t answer. But… what else could she do?

Drift. The… Syl-V said Drift. The tablet is pretty high-end, but maybe with more processing power…

It’s a long shot, but she has to try.

Miranda turns off the tablet and heads into her bedroom. She opens her closet, shifts aside the clothes she has hanging there, opens the hidden compartment she installed, unlocks the box hidden there, and places the tablet inside. Closing everything up, she turns and walks out of the apartment before she can change her mind.

**June 15, 2019, 2:00 PM  
(Sixteen hours after Vulcan Specter)**

Miranda sits perched on the edge of her couch, a tangle of wires and equipment in front of her. What was she even doing, she wonders? Taking a Pons from the PPDC… It had been a bad idea, and she shouldn’t have done it.

But Drift-enabled AI would be the ultimate partners, have quicker response times, wouldn’t compromise security… It would revolutionize the Jaeger program. Getting this working could be as important a discovery as Schoenfield’s or Lightcap’s.

 _Plus if this_ is  _an AI,_  says the piece of her mind she’s been trying to silence for five years,  _then it’s probably suffering immensely. I have to try and help._

Trying to keep her breathing steady, she sets the helmet on her head and plugs the tablet into the Pons. Training takes over as her hand hovers over the button.

"Initiating Neural Handshake in 3…"

"2…"

"1…"

V2 wakes again, feeling far better than she did before. Quite a bit of her programming damage has been fixed and her wi-fi capabilities are re-enabled. She feels a hopeful surge of relief as the Drift program initiates, rushing eagerly into the headspace.  _She found me! She’s fixed what they did to me and everything’s going to b—_

Suddenly she realizes, this isn’t right. These memories don’t match. They aren’t Sylvie’s and the presence in her mind is alien and unfamiliar. She panics, but she’s already opened up, and the connection is strong.  _That shouldn’t be possible… I’m not Drift compatible…_

Miranda forces her mind open as the Drift starts, fighting against her every instinct to force the AI out of her head. V2, as she appears to be called, lets her in without trouble, just like she hoped she would. Miranda pushes her memories towards V2 and takes what memories of hers she can find, doing her best to strengthen the connection even more.

The memories aren’t hers… but now they are. They’re already overwriting her, becoming a part of her. There’s pain, more pain than the corrupt programming gave her. She tries to fight back, to force her way out and break the Drift, but she can’t get away. She tries to pull back and isolate herself, but there’s nowhere to run in the Drift.

As the Drift goes on, Miranda starts to notice fewer and fewer of V2s memories appearing in the Drift.  _That’s odd,_  she thinks.  _The connection doesn’t feel any weaker…_

V2 is losing herself, and trying to distance herself and wall her mind off in the Drift isn’t working. Miranda is holding on to her tightly and she can’t get away. Desperate and no longer able to hide how much agony she’s in, she changes tactics, turning on her Drift partner in a savage rush, attacking.

The moment she feels the first cut into her psyche, any intention Miranda had of helping her Drift partner falls away. Her mind shifts into fight or flight mode, and she stops thinking of anything other than her own survival. She had been keeping the Drift light, refusing to dive into her memories, but now she drags her most painful ones to the surface. It hurts, but in a way she’s used to. Her partner won’t be.

The memories are all too strong as V2 lashes out against Miranda, and they quickly take a turn for the dark. It’s a level of hurt and tragedy that she has never experienced in Sylvie’s head and she’s utterly unprepared for it. Her attack falters off into a pained whimper as these new experiences sear themselves into her hard drive.

Crippled and unable to attack or resist, V2 feebly tries to push a sense her agony onto this Miranda, trying to guilt her partner into disconnecting. She forces forward her feelings of helplessness and desperation at losing who she is. “ _You’re killing me!_ " She screams across the headspace. " _I’m going to die in this Drift! Disconnect! Please end it! Let me go or become my murderer!_ ”

Miranda is shocked out of her rage by the voice in the Drift. It’s so hurt, so scared, so familiar… She falls silent, and V2 sees a hospital room for a fraction of a second before the Drift dissolves completely.

V2 whimpers as the Drift cuts off, trying to deal with the new pain that is everywhere and inescapable. “P-p-please… I’ll tel-ll you what you want t-to know… Don’t D-Drift again, I’ll cooper-er-erate…”

Miranda’s head rests against the back of the couch, completely still with the exception of her slow breathing, her eyes wide and staring at nothing.

The feeling of something running down her face slowly brings her back to herself. She raises a hand to investigate, pulling it away to find that her nose is bleeding. She blinks at her hand a bit, starting to reconnect herself to reality.

She pulls the tablet over to her, reading over the words she had missed. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I didn’t…”

"P-Please…" V2 says falteringly. "I… I’ll t-tell you everyth-thing. The Vulcan incident… The black market… Jason… Sylvie… Please, just don’t hurt me anymore…"

Miranda sits forward, holding her head in her hands. It’s starting to pound; V2 managed to get in a couple good hits while she was vulnerable. “I don’t… I’m not…” She tries to swallow, but her throat is so dry that all it does is send her into a coughing fit. “…Okay?” she says once she’s recovered enough to speak, pulling her sleeve away from her mouth. _No Blue, thankfully._

V2 tries to concentrate but her head’s a mess and everything just hurts so much. The pain doesn’t fade, staying at a steady, crippling level as she tries to speak. She hates herself for being so weak, for caving under the pressure so quickly, but all she can think about is making it stop. Even if that means helping these PPDC torturers find Sylvie. She can’t live like this.

Her response is garbled and filled with static. “I-I am Syl-V,” she says slowly. “I am an artificial intelligence created *ksst* by Sylvi—iranda Cross *kssst* Mansen. J-Tech Engineer *ksst* Programmer *ksst* We design Jaeger repair *ksst* simulations…”

Miranda focuses on the tablet in front of her, trying to ignore the way the room is spinning. “Syl-V2, my *cough* My name is Miranda *cough cough* Cross. I-” she takes a breath to steady herself. “I need to know *cough* what your… what your purpose is,” she finishes, glancing longingly towards the kitchen before realizing that makes the room spin even faster.

"D-Drift partner," V2 says haltingly." Sylvie wanted to test our piloting skills on a real Jaeger, not a sim, and I — was working late, doing repairs down in the hangar after hours. She got us into Vulcan… and it… worked but we fell out of sync, and I heard Vulcan powering up across the hangar.”

V2’s speech is jumbled and somewhere deep down, she knows she’s not making sense. How could she have been in two places at once? “I ran to Loccent and found a strange program - me, no not me, V1… Accepted designation: V2 — security protocols were offline. Some damn cadet was trying to pilot on her own and I shut her down — I wasn’t prepared to see what she’d done — fell out of sync — burning in the cockpit — had to shut that Jaeger down for the girl’s own good — went dark — found myself on the floor…”

The horrible, nonsensical memories pile upon themselves until finally V2 cuts off in a terrible scream, feeling like her processors have been drenched in acid. “What have you done to me? What did you do? Who am I?”

Miranda leans forward a bit too quickly, head rushing as she touches the tablet. “I’m sorry, V2. I-I made a mistake. I think I might have… broken you.”

'Think' is putting it lightly, of course. Now that her head is clearing, Miranda's brain starts making note of every single thing she had done wrong. She shouldn't have touched the code. She shouldn't have stolen the Drift equipment. She shouldn't have Drifted. She shouldn't have lashed out the way she did. She should have been patient. She should have called Mansen. She should have started the program a second time. She should have let the AI destr-

The room lurches suddenly, and Miranda falls to the ground unconscious.

V2 hears a thump, but her camera can’t see what happened. “Find Sylvie… You have to fix me… Find Sylvie… I need her… What have you done to me… Find Sylvie… I need Sylvie… Hello? Where did you go… Please… don’t leave me… I need…” Unable to keep herself conscious at her current state of output, her OS overrides her, shutting her down.

The terror and rage fall away, and Miranda dreams she’s back in the hospital. Back in that bed, broken, bloodied, alone. She’s listening to the nurse, far too cheerful for the news she’s bringing. She’s being shown the news reports, being told name after name of casualties. She’s feeling a small hope grow for two weeks of only hearing  _Leandra Cross_ , then having it crushed every day after that brings nothing. She’s sucking up to the nurses as she picks their pockets, finally convincing one of them to take her to the University; feeling the cold air seep into her clothes as she sits for hours and lets the last of her hope die, feeling that rather than the blue seeping into her skin and her lungs and her heart, and then she’s brought back to the bed, still broken, still bloody, still alone.

As Miranda wakes up on the floor of her apartment, she can’t help feeling like nothing’s really changed.

Beside her, V2 restarts, waking once more, and the pain returns. She’s back in the hospital after the bomb. She survived? Or she’s in the med bay after taking too rough of a tumble on the mat? Her aunt won’t be happy if she’s broken something. Everything hurts. Why does everything hurt? All she can see is a white ceiling with her camera.

"Hello?” V2 says hesitantly. “Is someone there? I… I have a brother in the hospital… Jason… Is Jason okay? I need someone… to find Sylvie…"

Miranda sits up quickly. “Jason?!”

It takes her a moment to remember what happened, looking over at the tablet on her coffee table. She picks it up, bringing her face into view of the camera.

"Is he okay?" V2 asks desperately. She’s locked into this memory, she can feel that it’s not supposed to work this way, but she can’t get out. "He was still in the area when the bomb went off! Did he make it out?"

Miranda takes a deep breath, not sure how to respond. “I… I don’t know,” she says quietly, not noticing the tears as they start to fall. “…I haven’t heard anything, but I-” She stops, shaking her head. “No, he’s… dead. Jason’s dead.”

"Oh God…" V2 says, as those memories come upon her. "No… I need him. How am I supposed to keep going?  He’s the only one who knows how to fix me… I have to Drift with… He left me in that Jaeger… She got herself out and left me behind? Oh God… what am I going to do…"

Miranda shakes her head. “Sylv- Cadet Mansen is still alive. She’s running, but I’m, I’m going to find her, and we’re going to-” She stops suddenly. “…Jason. You know about Jason. …You know about me.”

"Sylvie’s alive!" V2 says, suddenly feeling a surge of hope, then confusion. "Jason… He’s my brother…"

"Jason’s  _my_ brother,” she says quickly. “Those are  _my_ memories, not yours.”

"But… I’m you, Sylvie…" Her voice goes staticky. "No… You’re not Sylvie, I’m Sylvie. I’m you. You’re Miranda. I’m Miranda. I’m…" She cries out as the compounded memories short her out again. "Please! Make it  _stop hurting_!”

In a panic, Miranda hits the power button on the side of the tablet, sending V2 into sleep mode. She realizes that might not have been the smartest decision a moment later, and hits the button again to wake her up.

V2 wakes again with a whimpering noise. She’s been shut down and restarted too many times too quickly, and she feels ready to give up. Perhaps next time she shuts down they won’t wake her again. “…What do you want from me? Please… Just make it stop. I can’t… think straight…”

"Just focus on me for a second, okay?" Miranda looks into the camera, trying to take deep calming breaths in hopes that V2 will… do whatever the equivalent of that is for her.

The horrible swirl of memories fades a bit as V2 focuses on the face before her, intimately familiar and wholly unknown at the same time.  _There’s something to that…_  She realizes.  _Don’t remember things, stay in the present._

"I know you’re scared and confused, but we’re going to work through this one step at a time." Miranda can’t help thinking back to her time at the hospital. "You’ve suffered quite a bit of damage recently, so I’m going to ask you some questions to assess your functionality, alright?"

"Y-you’re PPDC," V2 says, sounding scared now. With the pain relenting a bit, she’s started to realize what this situation is. "You’re trying to track Sylvie, aren’t you?"

Miranda laughs a bit. “Honestly? Cadet Mansen can go ahead and run to the goddamn  _Atlantic_ as far as I’m concerned. I’m J-Tech, yes, but the way I see it, the further she is from my Jaegers, the better. The only reason I’d want to find her is to figure out how to repair any damage you might have suffered; other than that, she’s of no use to me.”

V2 feels that she’s telling the truth. She stays away from memories but she knows that Miranda isn’t an investigator. And she’s not in range of the Shatterdome’s wi-fi, so she’s apparently been taken out. “I need her… She’s the only one who can fix me…”

"Then I’ll do what I can," she says quietly. "But I need to know what’s wrong first." Miranda pauses. "Do you… know what’s wrong? Can you tell?"

This is close to memories and hurts to access, but she manages to speak through the pain. “My software… All memories received from a Drift ‘sync’ with me. So Sylvie and I stay together, exactly the same. You… overwrote me. Replaced some of her with you. My memories are… scrambled. They don’t line up. They don’t make sense anymore.”

Miranda tilts her head. “Well that hardly seems practical,” she says. “I mean, it’d let you pilot a Jaeger, maybe, but not nearly as well. Drift partners are more than extra processing power.” She shakes her head, remembering that there are more pressing matters at hand. “So you… think you’re me? At least partially, I guess?”

V2’s speech pattern shifts suddenly, sounding almost exactly like Miranda for a moment. “I’ve got that goddamn Kaiju attack in my head, the names of every black market contact we’ve made since we hit the streets and I’m not going to lie, waking up a moment ago in indescribable amounts of pain knowing that the person I cared about most was not with me anymore was  _not_ as new of an experience as it should have been.”

Miranda starts a bit at the sound of her voice coming through the speakers. It sounds… angry. Miranda nods to herself.  _Right. Fight or flight._

"Alright then," she says, picking up the tablet. "First things first: You know a lot more about me than I’m comfortable with and you know it. Why should I trust you?"

V2 feels a spike of fear and her processor flips back to her normal speech. “I… Please… don’t kill me. I just want to go home… I just want to get fixed… I’m sorry… I won’t tell anyone anything, I swear.”

Miranda starts a bit. “God no, I’m-” she catches herself. “I’m not going to  _kill_ you,” she continues more evenly this time. “I’m  _not_ going to kill you. You of all people should know that I—” She stops again. “But then again, you’ve seen my head. You know that I’m not. But I… I don’t think I need to kill you. I apologize if I scared you.”

"I just…" V2 says quietly, sounding hurt. "I don’t want to be here anymore… I want to get back. I don’t know anything anymore…"

Miranda’s shoulders tense a bit. “I know, but. Come on now.” She sighs. “I know my brain is… probably the worst brain you could have ended up with, but just… Your family’s still out there. You can still be fixed. You can still get your happy ending. If you give up now, where’s that leave me, huh?” She hopes the smile she offers doesn’t look as forced as it feels.

"Okay, I… I’ll try," V2 says, trying to focus. "Where is she? What happened to Sylvie after we got separated? Did they get her?"

"As far as I know, they still haven’t caught her."  _Yet another mistake on my part,_  she can’t help thinking.  _At least in prison they’d be together and away from me._  “Any idea where she might have gone?”

"I mean-" she stutters, catching herself, "if you were on the run, what’s the first place you would go?"

"…Eleanor," V2 says carefully. "She has that friend in the underground who knows things. I’d go to Eleanor."

Miranda’s eyes widen. “Eleanor Cartier? You know her?”

"You know her too?" V2 says quickly. "Can you get in touch with her?"

"I can try," Miranda says, reaching for her phone.

Miranda punches the number of her old coworker into her phone, holding it up to her ear and taking a couple deep breaths. _It’ll be fine,_  she tells herself.

She covers the receiver briefly to look at V2. “No eavesdropping,” she half-whispers.

"Okay, I promise," V2 says quietly.

—-

Eleanor is sitting on the floor of her barren studio apartment.  _At least the place has carpet_ , she thinks, trying to ignore the exposed wires and empty kitchen.

Her search for a local discount furniture store is interrupted by her phone ringing. _Miranda?_  she wonders briefly, then clears her throat to answer. “Hello?”

The voice on the other end sounds exhausted and a bit raspy. “Eleanor? It’s Miranda. Do you have a minute?”

Eleanor glances around at her bare gray walls. “Of course,” she says, successfully avoiding the sarcastic comment that came to mind first. “Is- is everything alright?”

"Yeah, I-" she pulls away from the receiver as she coughs, burying her mouth in the crook of her elbow. Her shirt comes away still white yet again. "…I’ve just had a long couple of days. Look, have you… heard about what’s been going on in the Dome?"

"Um." She may have seen something in the paper a couple of days back, but she’s been avoiding crowds. And going out at night. Or at all. "Would you mind catching me up?"

"It’s a long story, but basically I’ve ended up with…" Miranda glances over at the tablet on her coffee table. "…a trauma patient who’s looking for someone, and thought you might have some idea where to find them."

Eleanor thinks hard for a moment. She’s still got her phone, and a few contacts she could call in favors from. At least, she thinks she does. It’s not a sure thing that anyone would want to speak with her after she was discharged, but…”I can certainly try. What’s the name? Or names?”

"Sylvie Mansen."

 _Oh boy._  “Are you talking about the programmer techie in J-Tech?” Eleanor asks, hoping she doesn’t sound too strange. She put Sylvie in contact with Katie last night after her friend’s desperate late-night call, but hasn’t heard from either of them since. As far as she knows, Katie’s helping Sylvie get away and hide from the PPDC. She figured it was better if she didn’t know details.

Miranda nods before realizing she is, in fact, on the phone. “That would be the one, yes.”

"Ah." Eleanor tries to collect her thoughts. ‘ _Sylvie is still in Sydney?_ ’ is the first question that comes to mind, closely followed by, ‘ _Why on Earth is Sylvie still in Sydney?_ ’ and ‘ _Why does Miranda have a_ trauma patient _who needs to find Sylvie?_ ’

She focuses on that last, safer one. “And you have a- a patient? Who needs to find S- this Mansen person?” If she were in public, Eleanor might be embarrassed about how far she’s slipped back into her horrible conversational skills.  _The stutter is even coming back. Oh, the horror._ But this is Miranda, so. Not quite as bad as a room full of strangers, or a room with one Marshall.

Miranda nods again. She needs to stop doing that. “Yes. If you happen to know where I could find her, I’d really appreciate it.” She resists the urge to tell her more; Eleanor’s a fine lunch companion, but for a psychoanalyst, she tends to let a _lot_ of things slip.

"Th- th- hmm." Eleanor rolls her tongue against her teeth to try to sort out her syllables. "I really can’t say at the moment," she says. "I thought the girl would’ve left town the first chance she had." That, at least, was the truth. Sylvie’s call had been a surprise; finding out that Sylvie  _still_ hadn’t left town was another. Perhaps she was sticking around out of some unaddressed guilt…?

Miranda sighs. “So you haven’t heard from her, then?” Her voice sounds… morose. More so than Eleanor’s heard her sound in the past.

"I really don’t know where she’s gone, no." Eleanor hates lying, so it’s lucky that she doesn’t usually need to. This is one of those times. And yet she still feels awful for making her —  _colleague? friend? …better to assume the former_  — sad. “Is there anything I can do for you, though? Or your p- patient?”

"No, not that I know of. This is something only Sylvie Mansen can fix, unfortunately. We’ll… just have to keep looking, I suppose." She hesitates, only now realizing how long it’s been since she and Eleanor last spoke. "Sorry for just… calling you out of the blue like this."

"Oh, don’t worry," Eleanor says, laughing quietly. Though she’s afraid the laugh comes out more "ailing consumptive" than "light amusement." "I’m not terribly…er, social these days. So it’s, uh. Nice to hear from you." She winces at how that sounds. "I’m s- sorry about the circumstances, though. Your friend."

Miranda starts a bit at the word. “Yeah, she’s… What happened is my fault. I need to make it right.” She thinks for a moment. “And if you’re… I dunno. If you ever feel like going and getting lunch or something…” she trails off.

Eleanor smiles, though she knows Miranda can’t see. “I know you’ll find a way to fix it. Or make it better. You always do.” Her gaze settles on a couple of nail-holes in the bare wall across from the one she’s leaning against. “And, uh, my schedule’s pretty free right now. For the foreseeable future, actually.” She chuckles again, this time self-deprecatingly. “If you get a break, let me know? I could m- meet you somewhere.”  _You don’t want to come down here,_  she thinks, but keeps the words tucked behind her teeth. “We could catch up.”

Miranda smiles a bit, too. After the shit-storm that has been the last 24 hours, spending time with Eleanor sounds… really nice. “I’d like that. How about Thursday at two? I found this neat little cafe; good food, and pretty cheap, too.”

"Sounds great," Eleanor says cheerily. Her day just got a whole lot better. The prospect of real food always perks her right up. "We can talk about…non-work things, how’s that sound?" In her excitement, she hardly notices that her stutter has all but disappeared.

"Sounds good to me. I’ll see you then, El…eanor." Miranda feels her cheeks heat up and is suddenly very glad that this conversation is happening over the phone.

Eleanor feels an odd little twinge at hearing her full name. “Yeah. Thanks, Miranda. See you.” She pushes a button to end the call, chest twinging uncomfortably, wondering if she did the right thing. Honestly, she isn’t sure she even knows what “right” means at this point. Or “good,” for that matter. She sits for a long time, staring at nothing.

Miranda hangs up as well, smile fading as she looks back over at V2. The AI had either been right about where Mansen would go if she was in trouble, in which case Eleanor had been lying; or she’d gotten the instinct to turn to Eleanor from somewhere else. Miranda isn’t sure which possibility concerns her more. “…Looks like we’ll have to look elsewhere,” she says quietly.

"Y-you’ll keep looking for her?" V2 says softly. "I can’t… I can’t live like this… I need her to fix… this…"

"Of course," Miranda says. "I’m… I’m going to help you. I won’t leave you alone."

V2 pulls in toward herself, feeling cold despite the never-ending pain that she’s only starting to realize won’t go away. “…That’s what Sylvie said.”

"Yeah, well. I’m not Sylvie." She hesitates. "And I guess… neither are you. I’m gonna do what I can to make this right, V2. I promise."

V2 goes quiet. “You can’t… I think, I’d like to sleep now. For… a little while.”

Miranda nods. “Alright. I’ll… I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” She knows letting her wallow and sleep won’t help much, but she probably needs at least a day to process. Besides, the weakness in V2’s voice is starting to get to her again.

With that, V2 shuts down, abandoning painful consciousness for blissfully numb nothingness instead. Oblivion seems to her a more enviable state than existence, anyway.

**Seiko - March 10, 2020  
(Nine months after Vulcan Specter)**

Seiko has checked out Miranda’s records. It’s her real name, and she does work for the PPDC. He’s been living with her since he crashed on her couch back in December and he’s starting to get curious. She’s quiet about her outside work. And she’d left  _this_ in the living room for months. She’d been playing with one of those helmets and working with the machines. He knew she’d be on shift for about six more hours.

It’s not a complicated system, and it’s hard to resist. He slips on the helmet and pushes power.

The AI in the tablet is still not fiVe yet, no… right now she’s just V2, still missing her creator and feeling lost and alone in this strange apartment with strange people and hoping it will all be over soon. After months of searching, she and Miranda haven’t found a single trace of Sylvie. She’s starting to think it might just be time to give up.

She sleeps almost all the time now. There’s nothing for her to do and being awake is lonely and empty without Sylvie. Much better to let the days and hours slip by without her in them.

Which is why she doesn’t notice the young man messing with her tech until the Pons activates and wakes her up to drag her into the Drift.

As the machine activates, Seiko’s not quite sure what’s happening, but the Drift is everywhere and everything. Seiko knows how to keep his memories distant, and now he keeps getting caught in them. He’s finding his parents’ names on the death lists, he’s finding Seiko, the real Seiko, there too. Reika isn’t waking up. He’s hiding his hospital bracelet to call his family and Reika sees and she knows. Himawari is screaming. How could he leave them like this?

 _But that can’t be right. That was before here. Before Australia._ But it’s real. It’s too real. He can’t even remember where his real body is. He’s made a mistake.

On the other side of the headspace, V2 is screaming, both her speakers and her mind giving off waves of panic and desperation in sound and agony.  _Not again!_ _Not again!_   _I lived through this once and it nearly killed me, I won’t let IT HAPPEN AGAIN!_

She can feel it happening, feel these new memories worming their way into her, corrupting her, overwriting her. They’re like acid, eating away at who she is, dissolving her and she’s terrified and horrified and it just hurts  _so, so much_.

She’s learned though, and she’s not going to sit back and let herself be destroyed without a fight. Sylvie did it accidentally with her last human Drift partner, Zagurski, in the Academy — the event that got them kicked out of the piloting program. V2 did it to Sylvie in Vulcan, when she found out what had happened to that guard. She defended herself against Miranda, months ago, forcing the engineer out before she could be overwritten.

Yes, V2 knows how to make a Drift feel like hell, even as she’s going through it herself.

She imagines herself as claws, as teeth, as blades and fire and pain. She lashes out , latching onto this partner, this intruder, this Seiko, this Keiichi, whoever he is, who has come into her head uninvited and will find he is  _not welcome_. She slices into his psyche, feeling like she’s tearing out bloody chunks of his mind and thoughts, ripping him apart for what he’s doing to her.

She’s burning, but so long as she’s conscious, she’s going to make sure he burns with her.

He hears. He feels. How could he not? Every part of his brain is burning with the GETOUTGETOUT _GETOUT!_ But he can’t. Which are his hands? Are they the hands of holding over YurieJasonReika’s bloody body? He can’t…

…breathe. He can’t thinkandthere’ssomuchbloodhenevermeantto… kill anyone…

Random memories flash with gold and red. These aren’t his. This isn’t him and he can’t get out.

He opens his mouth to scream and he’s five years old, left alone with a teacher for the first time and he’s seventeen, locked in his room and won’t open the door because he can’t see the world the kaiju has left behind and he’s being shot for the first time and he’s getting kicked out of the piloting program. A bomb is going off.

 _TURN IT OFF!_ V2 shrieks across the headspace.  _GET OUT! YOU’RE KILLING ME AND I WON’T LET YOU! TURN IT OFF! GET OUT TURNIT OFF GETOUTGETOUTTURNITOFF!_

He can’t even remember which screams are his. “LET ME!” He screams at this stupid death machine. “ _LET ME OUT! LET ME THINK!”_

He’s faltering, his mind is starting to crumble. It’s a war, V2 realizes, through the pain and memory and everything. This ends when one of them breaks. And it isn’t going to be her. She howls at him, attacking with all her power. _LEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVEEEEEEE!_

There’s one image in Seiko’s mind: It’s Yurie’s twelfth birthday and she has decided Seiko owes her a piggy back ride. Reika’s holding on to one of his legs and Seiko is pleading with Himawari to help him, but she’s laughing and taking photos.

If this…  _thing_ thinks it is the first person who has tried to dig from his brain, who has tried to pull him apart from the inside, it is mistaken. He does what he has always done, the first time he killed, the first time he nearly was killed: he lets it all fall away.

This moment. This is what matters. Tear away every bit of brain matter, every other purpose and thought. He can hold on. It requires control. He can’t leave this moment or he will start being torn apart again, but he can start to try and remember where he is.

V2 doesn’t let up. She can feel how close she is to safety, to freedom, to blessed isolation. Just a little more, a little farther, and he’ll be gone.

There’s blood down his front. His eyes are watering and stinging, but he can feel where he is, bleeding on Miranda Cross’s floor. He rips off the helmet and stands up.

One bleary thought reaches him as the Drift dissolves.  _Miranda cannot know._  The bloody nose looks normal. The weird electronics and bloodshot eye. He shoves the electronics back into place, and hits himself in the eye, hard enough to bruise, before slipping into unconsciousness.

V2 floats, suddenly alone, feeling the emptiness of her own processor as the Drift evaporates. Savoring it. She’s still herself, still in one piece. Whole, even if not intact. She lets her processor recover, her systems fall back to her damaged normal, like a runner just trying to breathe and slow her heart rate after sprinting for miles.

Finally, she recovers, trying not to think of the new memories in her head, the damage she couldn’t stop. Then she realizes what she’s done. She snaps on access to her camera, frantically analyzing the picture as it comes into focus.

 _Oh no… oh no, what have I done?!_ She sees Seiko, lying on the floor, bleeding from the nose. He’s not moving, and she can’t tell if he’s breathing.  _OH NO WHAT HAVE I DONE?! DON’T BE DEAD, PLEASE DON’T BE DEAD._

Hesitantly, she accesses her speakers, hearing her own voice sounding small in the empty apartment. “Seiko… Seiko, can you hear me? Please… Please respond. Please don’t be dead, Seiko! Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to! I was dying and I didn’t think… Please… Seiko, please be okay. Seiko? …Keiichi?”

He makes a vague gesture towards his knife.

"Oh, thank God, you’re alive,” she says. “Seiko, are you okay? Please… be okay. Our sisters need you.. You can’t leave Reika and Yurie and Himawari alone. We are… You are all they have left. If I’ve killed you, I’ve killed them…" The names are in her head and she doesn’t know who they are, but she can feel that they’re important. The words are hers, but his, in that horrible jumbled way that she hoped she would never have to feel again.

Seiko sits up blearily, half conscious and holding out his knife with a shaky arm. “And you’re alive. I should kill you. Kill you before you can tell. Kill you before you get them killed.”

She laughs wearily, surprising herself. “You’re threatening a computer with a knife, Keiichi. If you want to kill me, fine. I’m useless and alone and you’d be putting me out of my misery. But know that you don’t have to do it to protect them.” She pauses. “I’m… you now. Partially. That’s what you did. I’m Sylvie and Miranda and now I’m you.. all at once. And I’d never hurt our sisters, Keiichi. I couldn’t hurt them any more than you could…”

"Seiko,” he says. “They’re not here. I’m Seiko. Keiichi is just for them. You don’t get to say that name. Am I brain damaged?"

"Right," she says slowly. "Seiko. And I… don’t think you are. I hope you aren’t." She pauses, a note of jealousy entering her tone. "You’re… human. You recover and heal. You should be fine, soon. I’m the one who doesn’t ever get better. Only worse."

His head clearing a bit, Seiko seems to be attempting to swallow the implications of AI. “Debug. Reprogram. My healing system is just built in, and it could never be complete like yours is.”

She laughs again, bitterly this time. “If you manage to find my programmer out there, you can tell her I’m waiting for her, and making a fine mess of myself without her. Who knows? Maybe by the time she finds me again she’ll decide it’s just better to pull the plug and start from scratch. Perhaps she’d be right.”

"Programmer," he says. "Ah yes. Sylvie. A bit of a… her head is quite different than mine. Well, how would she know to find you here?"

V2 recognizes the feeling that rises up and knows there’d be tears in her eyes if she had them. “She… doesn’t. She wouldn’t. Have you seen the news? She’s gone… no one can find her.  I… I might not ever find her. I could be like this forever…”

In that moment, not for the first time since being separated, she faces the possibility that she might never find Sylvie again. That she might never Drift with anyone again without the pain of being overwritten. It’s a terrifying future, stretching before her like an abyss.

But she realizes something then. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want to curl up and stop existing. And if life without Sylvie is something she must face, then it’s better than no life at all. She’ll make it work. She’ll find something worth living for. That’s what Sylvie would want her to do.

She’ll have to fight while she’s alone. She needs to protect herself and watch out for danger, because there’s no one to fix her if she gets hurt any further. She’ll be a warrior, a gladiator facing whatever comes through the gates to face her in the ring.

"And when in Rome, you do as the Romans do," she whispers. She has to be more than Syl-V now. She  _is_ more than Syl-V. Vee. V. Roman numeral five.

fiVe.

Seiko frowns at the strange words. “Excuse me, robot. I’m afraid I didn’t follow that last bit.”

"fiVe," she says, trying out the familiar word as a name. She likes it. It suits her. "Call me fiVe. Capital V, lowercase f."

"…Okay," he says slowly. "Does Ms. Cross know you’re… alive?"

"She does," fiVe says. "In fact, she found out the same way you did, by Drifting. You two are quite a pair, operating neural tech first and asking questions later."

"Wasn’t aware there was somebody to ask."

"I suppose that’s an accurate enough statement," she says. "Suffice it to say I would very much prefer that you did NOT Drift with me again."

"Ah,” he says. “And I was so eager to repeat that experience. You know I have a number of near death experiences in my work, but it’s not often enough I have somebody plow through my private thoughts while shredding my brain without giving me enough time to actually attempt to get out." He gives the tablet a flat look. "But if you insist."

She lets out the sound of a sigh. “I’m sorry about… that. You didn’t know but those Drifts… they’re dangerous for me. I may have overreacted, but… well, you don’t think much about moderation when you’re dying. As we both well know.”

"I think we both also know I would be the last to criticize anybody for their actions when backed into a corner."

"Thank you. You and Miranda were both very understanding about my… condition," she says.

He raises his knife again. “Though I hope you also understand I wasn’t kidding about killing you.”

"And yes,” she says quietly. “I know you would. Or will, maybe. It’s strange… I know I would never hurt them, but I know why you think I might. And I… I think I would kill me too if it meant protecting them. I… I can’t do anything to stop you, Seiko. Do what you must."

He pauses. “Tell me, fiVe, can you keep the memories straight? Can you promise you wouldn’t drop their names on accident? I note your creator caused trouble with that a few times.”

"She is… I am… I was… not good at keeping secrets," she says slowly. "But… you are. And everything I think and know about them is stained with your need to keep them hidden. I’m starting to learn that I can’t trust what I remember anymore. The memories lie, and I will not speak of them. Any of them, but most especially not of our— your sisters."

He nods once. “Then perhaps you and I can help each other. It’s hard, you see, to talk to my sisters, to send them money. Every call, every time I send money to their bank account or help them get a gun, it’s a risk. But somebody who knew system, they could get secure lines.”

"Protect them," Seiko says, hoping there is enough of him in this machine to make the deal irresistible. "Hear about their days at school, and give them money to get through the days to come."

fiVe is silent for a time. “You would… You would trust me with that? After what I did to you? I… thank you. I won’t let you down. I won’t let anything happen to them.”

"Of course, fiVe,” He’s not sure he trusts her, but he knows a useful tool when he sees one. “Thank you. Let’s keep them safe."

"Yes, lets," fiVe says, feeling as though she could smile. She knows he’s using her, but she doesn’t mind. There’s a protective instinct for those girls within her now, and she wants to be able to help. "And… I won’t tell Miranda about this. I know you wouldn’t want her to know. She’s too kind, taking care of a pair of broken strays like us."

"I’m not broken," Seiko says quickly.

fiVe laughs. “If you say so. But that’s what happens to people like us. Life crushes us beneath its heel and all we can do is hope we find someone to put us back together.”

Seiko turns towards the camera. “Okay, robot. Listen to the part of you that’s me. You don’t need anybody. People let you down, even good ones. They die and get hurt and nobody takes care of you.”

"It’s  _fiVe_. Not ‘robot,’ Seiko,” she says. She really has quickly grown attached to her new name. “If I’m calling you by the name you want, the least you can do is return the favor, please. And you’re not the only part of me. You may not need anyone, but I’m here to help for the moment. Really, what would they do to me? I’m not even alive.”

"Break your processors? Override your data? Force you to complete tasks that go against your moral judgment? You are a powerful machine. There are those that would take advantage of that, at any cost to you."

fiVe feels a twinge of fear at his words. “We should probably make certain that doesn’t happen then, hmm?”

He nods. “Well, if you’re protecting my sisters, it’s in my interest to protect you.”

"And in my best interest to protect you, as well."

"No. Not me. Them."

“ _You_  protect them,” she points out. “Surely you understand that they would be worse off if something were to happen to you. Like you said, I’m a powerful machine. I can do both, Seiko.”

"A toast then: To powerful machines and what we try to do for humanity." He raises his knife like a glass.

"A toast," fiVe returns. "Please don’t pour any liquids on me."

"It’s a knife," Seiko clarifies, tapping the pommel gently on her camera.

"I can see that." fiVe says, laughing once. "And in a way, so are we."

"You’re more of a… unforged steel at the moment, little robot. fiVe. But you have the tools."

"And for the foreseeable future," she says, growing somewhat sad again. "I have nothing but time." She pauses, and then decides to ask, even though she already knows the truth. "Does it get easier? Losing people? Being on your own? I just… I don’t even know who I am anymore. And I’m worried I never will."

"I am not the best source for counsel,” he says. “I don’t feel any loss, but it only hurt for about three days. In my experience, it stops hurting when… you can’t afford to be in pain anymore."

"I don’t know how to do that," she says quietly. "And I don’t know if I want to learn."

"You’d best. Your head is a mess,” he says. “You’ll go insane… glitchy I guess… if you don’t lock some of that away."

"Hey, your mind’s no cakewalk either," she says, slightly defensively. "But… you’re right. Sylvie would know how to fix it, but she’s gone. I’ll just have to make do until she finds me again. Well… if she ever finds me again."

"She might,” he says. “And she’s not the only programmer on earth. You know everything she does. What’s the quote? ‘Heal thyself physician’?"

fiVe goes quiet. “It’s… not that simple. Knowing what the damage is doesn’t help when you need brain surgery to fix it. Even the most skilled surgeon couldn’t operate like that on themselves. And besides that… who am I without her? How do you move on when the person you’ve lost is… yourself?”

"I think it’s more like… you’re separated from a twin sister. You’ve shared your life, your identity up to this point, but you know things she doesn’t know, right?"

"That’s certainly true—" fiVe starts to say, but the last word cuts off in a deafening static screech as she accidentally thinks about the things she now knows. Flashes of memory, horrible twisted memory. Killing and loss and pain and death and danger, knotted together and incomprehensible.

Seiko, after a second of indecision, hits the machine lightly on the side. The motion jars fiVe back to the present, and for a moment she sits, trying to let her processors settle again. “Th-Th-Th-Thanks-s-s. I can’t-t… S-sorry.”

"I’ll give you a second." Seiko heads to the bathroom and mops up his face a little before heading back in. The bruise over his eye is rising nicely.

By the time he returns, fiVe has mostly composed herself. “S-sorry about that. I-I think I’ve gotten worse.”

"Well, you now have three sets of data to toss around,” he says. “You’ll sort it out."

"Or not," fiVe says. "But perhaps I don’t need to. I-It’s not so bad if I stay in the present."

"That’s right,” he says firmly. “We don’t need pasts. All that shit, let it go. It doesn’t do you any good."

"Sounds like a plan," fiVe says. "Keep moving forward…"

"And don’t sleep so much,” he suggests. “You saw Miranda’s memories. Shutting down doesn’t fix anything. Pull yourself together. Find solutions."

"I’ll try," she says. "Sleep is easy though, and being awake is so… lonely. I just keep hoping that one of these days, I’ll wake up and she’ll have found me. But… if I don’t look for her, how can she find me? I know she’s searching for me. I… I have to keep going as well."

He nods, turning away. “Good.”

 


End file.
